Weekend Recap: Birthday Edition

What a weekend...I'm gonna go all the way back to Thursday morning even though I still had to work the rest of they day...

The day started off with some delicious Funfetti cookies thanks to Erica! I may or may not have eaten the majority of them..I mean seriously how does one resist the fluffiness and sprinkles?!?! Tell me how?!?!

Then it was up to my desk to find Elizabeth decorating my cube with streamers in two of my favorite colors! Since I don't put my eye liner and mascara on until I get to the office she had to work around me...ha ha...next time I'll try to get to work a little later ;)

After work, Amber and I hit up the closest movie theater to see The Conjuring! Finally a scary movie that is actually scary. The lady in front of me jumped back in her seat so hard at one point she actually hit my foot! And the chica next to me...ahem Amber...squealed. Me? I was calm, cool and collected...ha ha...ok maybe I did jump a time or two.

Friday, after a massage that hopefully won't leave bruises this time, I hit up Ooh La La to pick up my free birthday cupcake and some measuring spoons to match my new cupcake measuring cups from Bethany. I'm starting to get the feeling people have picked up on me liking cupcakes...ha ha. The rest of Friday I worked on/finished my shutterfly book of mine and B's trip to SF last fall and then my man took me out to TX Roadhouse where I would not let him tell them it was my birthday because I was not getting on that saddle...haha.

Saturday morning I woke up and attended a free/my first ever Crossfit class. They were holding a free session for people at work who signed up during our health fair. However, only 3 of us actually showed up...go us...you know who you are. I think all of us got our butts kicked and felt exactly like that e-card up there. Then it was off to lunch with an friend I hadn't seen since Christmas.

Saturday night was dinner and a movie! First up on the agenda was the movie...we saw Grown Ups 2. Hilarious!! Granted I like the first one too. I mean they aren't the best movies ever, but if you wanna laugh go see it! After the movie we hit up Los Cucos...cheese less nachos are always a win in my book.

Sunday = morning movie (don't know where my ticket stub is so no picture). I know, 3 movies in one weekend...whaaatttt??? This time we saw Wolverine. I thought the movie was pretty good despite what other reviews have said. Sunday night consisted of dinner at my parents. Every year I ask my dad to cook for me because he is better than any restaurant. This year he made me crawfish etouffee and sweet chipotle chicken to take home. I was soooo stuffed. But of course I still had room for a piece or two or three of cookie cake!

And finally, the birthday celebrations came to a close after lunch yesterday. Elizabeth and Erica took me out for Italian food to celebrate and "someone" told them we were celebrating my birthday...ha ha. The restaurant brought me a cream puff (complete with a lit candle) that, as you can tell, we destroyed!

Thank you to everyone who made my birthday so special. I really do have the best family and friends!!

Puppy Love

Last night I got to hang out with these cuties! I was over the moon...I bet you can't guess which one I wanted to take home?!?!

Oh yeah...my puppy date went in my planner!

This is Tres...he is a huuuuuge golden retriever

This is Gus...9 year old (I think) chocolate lab



This is Doc...he is 4 months old!! As you can tell by his face he didn't want to be held.

Health Fair 2013

Yesterday we had our first annual health fair at work. It included a free health screening, food vendors and workout places. Oh...and I might have signed up for a free Crossfit class this Saturday...I'm scared!! Anyways...the best part of yesterday...coming in to a goody bag full of fun things sitting on my desk!!

You've got your stress pig, mirror with floss on the back, health booklet, fancy water bottle, wet wipes, chap stick, pill box, magnet of what foods give you energy, emergency kit (not pictured) and "hand" hand sanitizer.

Oh yeah...the hand sanitizer is in a hand shaped bottle! Hilarious!!! Overall, it was a pretty good day!

Art Work or Cakes??

This past weekend I went to my very first bridal show with my brother's fiancé, her mom and her aunt. It was interesting to say the least. I had the most fun looking at all the crazy cakes they can come up with! These are just the few I remembered to take a picture of.

Book Review: Holly's Inbox and Holly's Inbox: Scandal in the City

{sources} Holly's Inbox and Holly's Inbox: Scandal in the City 

I'm drawing a blank right now to where I first heard about these books, but to the person/blog that recommended them...thank you.

These were such easy and light reads (took me one week and three days to finish both)! When you look at the thickness of the books, it might scare you...Holly's Inbox is over 600 pages and Holly's Inbox:Scandal in the City is over 500...but both are written in e-mail format so really it's like only reading half a page.

It's no secret I like me a good British Chick Lit type book...I mean I did read all of the books in the Shopaholic series...and these two books were very similar to that series. Even though Holly wasn't a shopaholic (heck she kept talking about how broke she was), she still gets herself into some interesting situations at work and real life...ha ha.

These were the perfect beginning of summer books to read. Also, these kept my mind off the book I'm anxiously waiting to be released...the third installment of the Divergent series...come on October...ha ha.

Despicable Me 2

{Source}

When the first movie came out, I thought it looked cute so off to the movies I went. When the movie was over I was absolutely in love! Ha ha. Ok...maybe just with the minions. So when I heard they were making a second Despicable Me, I jumped on my couch like Tom Cruise (oh yeah I went there).

I am happy to report that the second one did not let me down! It was just as cute and there were even more minions :) Also, Gru trying to keep his "daughter" from dating...hilarious! If you haven't seen this movie, go check it out!

Also if you haven't figured out my love for minions yet...both of the tanks below are on my birthday wish list...ha ha...I'd be happy with either one...plus then I will be able to alternate between my Aca-cuse me tank and a minion tank :) Oh how the little things make me so happy!

Nutella Brownies

Monday afternoon my friend sent me two recipes for Nutella brownies. One of them was only 3 ingredients and the other was eggless. Upon reviewing these recipes, I decided one of us needed to try out a recipe. Then I had a great idea! I told her since her birthday was Wednesday, I would make her a batch of Nutella brownies...luckily she picked the 3 ingredient one!!

**both recipes came from Kirbie's Cravings and I made her Easy 3 Ingredient Nutella Brownies**

This was probably my favorite part of making these brownies...leftover Nutella in the measuring cup! I didn't want to use my finger and my tongue wasn't long enough, so I got a piece of bread and wiped the remaining Nutella out!
 It was ahhh-mazing!

Please check out Kirbie's Cravings for more details about this recipe.

A few notes...

1. The batter will be thick

2. Her recipe says bake for 15 minutes. However, after 15 minutes the brownies were far from done. I ended up baking them for another 5 minutes adding up to 20 minutes total.

3. These came out with nice crispy edges and a really gooey middle...yum!! However, if you prefer your brownies more on the cake-like side I would suggest baking them even longer.

Come one Come all toThe Greatest Show on Earth

This past weekend B and I decided to be kids again and went to the Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus! This year's theme is dragons, which is not the reason I went and frankly could care less about...all I wanted to see were the elephants!!!! Without further ado, I present to you my slightly blurry photos from the circus!



Where everything, including a dragon, came out

First elephant sighting!!!! Makes me happy. And yes I might have been taking pics during the national anthem...my bad.

Everyone and everything out on the floor for the opening. I was trying to get a picture of the baby elephant (second to last) but either the rude people in front of me kept getting up or a stupid "dragon dancer" got in the way...grrr

Second favorite part of the show! This guy is crazy...I wouldn't be in a cage with that many lions and tigers!!

I think he was getting a kiss from the King of the Jungle.

The Ring Master

I tried so hard to clear this up and this is the best I could get.

I love the little guy sitting to the right...he he...really I love them all.

Seriously...I'm dying over their cuteness!

Ending number. That big cage in the middle was for the motorcycle riders...they fit 8 in there! Can you say crazy?!?!

So let's talk about a couple of things for a minute, shall we?

1. If you are planning on going to the circus, you can get there 90 mins before and go look at the animals. We, however, didn't get ready fast enough Sunday to do that...ha ha.

2. Going to the circus you expect a lot of kids. And we expected to encounter some little brats. But you know what? They weren't the problem...the parents were. The people sitting further down in our row and the people sitting in the row in front of us not only got there late, but got up several times during the show! I understand if you need to take your child to the restroom, but to go get popcorn and then a hot dog and then nachos...come on now! Wait until intermission!! Because I know your kid, who looks maybe 1, isn't eating all that.

We definitely enjoyed the show, but wished the elephant part was a little longer...ha ha. We love watching elephants! Also, clowns these days are wayyyy different than I remember. They kind of look like normal people now ha ha. One last thing, remember this is not cirque du solei...it's just a regular circus...ha ha. From what I could tell, all the kids around us really enjoyed the show. So if you have little ones of your own, it could be a fun family outing...and don't worry they do sell adult beverages if you are in need of that...ha ha.

Book Review - The Expats

Feels like forever and day since I reviewed a book. The last book I read was Safe Haven back at the beginning of this year. I borrowed this book from Elizabeth per her recommendation. She did not disappoint. While it may have taken me a while to finish it (my shows come first ha ha), I really did enjoy this book.

I think you would classify it as a spy novel. It pretty much follows the life of one woman who is skeptical about everything and everyone because that was her job in the past. She finds out some interesting tid bits through old contacts and things happen from there.

I feel like this book could be turned into a really good movie, if they do it the right way.

June Movie Reviews - Short and Sweet

In Theaters...

The Internship

Really liked this movie. There were lots of laughs to be had :)

Now You See Me

A good interesting movie. You'll keep trying to figure out what's going on and towards the end it'll start to click.

Iron Man 3

Another good one, but still not as good as the first.

The Heat

O.M.G Loved it! Seriously...go see this movie. I'm not saying it's the best thing ever, but it's good.



Rentals/On TV...

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Disturbing to say the least. It was also really hard to hear/understand them.

Parental Guidance

Cute! This turned out to be way better than I thought. And I totally side with the grandparents on how kids should be raised.

Zero Dark Thirty

Good movie. A little slow, but definitely worth it. Unless you get nightmares easily, like my mom.

This is 40

No. Just no. Don't waste your time with this one. I think I laughed maybe once and that's a big maybe.

Gone

Good movie. A little vague in parts, but enough to keep you interested. Liked the ending too.

Think Like a Man

A much better version of He's Just Not That Into You. I really got sucked into this one and wanted to smack some people for being stupid...ha ha.

Enagement Ring Cookies!!

I thought of this all by myself! I like to get creative with my desserts and hadn't made cookies in a while and I had never used royal icing before so I thought I would try it out. The icing isn't hard to make at all, but it did give me some issues...ha ha.

As you know, one of my goals for 2013 is to make one recipe from each of my cookbooks. Barrett's mom gave me a cookie cookbook (from Kohl's but can't find it online) a while ago and after flipping through it I decided on the Shortbread Butter cookie recipe. I used my large circle cookie cutter and my small circle cookie cutter to make the ring part. The diamond was made from the inside of the ring (the small cookie cutter) that I then made into a hexagon and smushed together with the ring part. I also used a small heart cookie cutter to make smaller un-iced cookies.

I decided to stick with white icing for the major color of the cookie. I poured most of it into a disposable pastry bag and snipped a tiny bit of the bag off at the end. I then piped the outside and inside borders. Once they were hard, I tried cutting a bigger hole in my bag so that the icing would flow out and would settle within it's borders. Yeah that didn't happen. I think my icing may have gotten too thick for that. So after ruining one cookie, I squeezed the rest of the icing back into the bowl and used a butter knife to spread the icing on. The borders did help some with this part. Since I still had some icing left, I decided to color it the lightest blue I could and outline the diamonds. Some turned out better than others.

While I was making these, Barrett (who knew I was making ring cookies) thought they looked like the boy/girl sex symbols...ha ha. Also, according to my brother if you just quickly glanced at them they looked like pacifiers. But most people saw them as rings.

They aren't too bad for my first time with both the dough and the icing, but I think I might stick to cupcakes for a while...ha ha.

Engagement Basket

Right after my brother told me he was going to propose, I knew I wanted to put together a little basket for them. I knew of a few things I wanted to put in there, but went on pinterest to get some more ideas. Now I couldn't actually pin the idea, because I didn't want his girlfriend fiance to see and get curious...ha ha...but I could take a screen shot of it!!

Above the pinterest version, below my version...

The contents...

1. Basket (from Target)
2. Her first family photo (the one and only from our cruise)(frame from Kirklands)
3. The Knot magazine
4. Photo of her and my brother from the trip (frame from Kirklands)
5. Bottle of Champagne (we actually toasted we Dom, so this is to be for a later date)
6. The Knot Book of Wedding Lists (according to the Pinterest basket this is the wedding bible found on Amazon)
7. Bride's and Groom's Instruction manuals (found on Amazon and they seemed pretty funny)
8. Ring holder (from Kirklands)
9. Jewelry cleaner (found at Walmart)
10. Stress Bull (not ball) donated by Erica...we got the stress bulls from the one and only conference we've gone to for work. Mine sits on my desk and his name is Tejas...ha ha.

Tomorrow will be all about the cookies I made for them to go along with the basket!

Weekend Recap {after the 4th}

After such an exciting 4th of July, it was back to work for little ol' me. But a Friday morning Starbucks run makes the day start just a little bit better :)

After working all day, I drove back up to the lake in time for dinner and a few rounds of Apples to Apples. Let's just say it was Haley's weekend...not only did she get a ring the day before, but she killed us all at this game...grrrr I don't like to lose...ha ha.

Saturday and most of the day Sunday was spent lounging around and relaxing in the water. In case you noticed, yes this is a recycled photo from 2 weekends ago, but I was too busy relaxing to remember to take a new picture.

Sunday evening I worked on the placement of rhinestones on these two letters. I can't wait to show y'all the finished product!!!

4th of July 2013

I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July. Mine was filled with some floating, jet skiing and happy tears (ok well no tears from me, but from the rest of the clan...ha ha)

Another blurry iPhone pic...grrr. These two Mallards hung out in our yard for a few hours. I may or may not have tried to communicate with them. Surprisingly I have a pretty believable 'quack'...ha ha. Who needs a duck call when you have me?!?!

Happy tears time! My brother proposed to his girlfriend of 5 years at sunset!!!!!!! (this is actually the re-enactment photo...his back was to us the first time...ha ha)

Such a pretty ring (she wouldn't let me take a pic of her nails so I had to take it from this angle)! The ring belonged to my Great Aunt who got married in 1935!!!!

There was a morning boat parade that I actually missed because I didn't make it out to the lake in time. So I got excited that there was going to be a night time one too. Sadly there was only one...ha ha. Does that even count as a parade anymore?!!?

And last but not least, it just wouldn't be the 4th without some fireworks!!