it was little b’s baptism…look how cute he is! those chubby cheeks and that blondish hair. so adorbs. we had the ceremony at the queenship of mary, fr. quyen presided over the blessings. it was a beautiful sunny day to celebrate his path into the catholic faith.
after the baptism, terry and kim hosted a luncheon at the harry caray’s restaurant. it was fun, delicious, and quaint. we had a lovely private room where we could converse and visit one another with ease. i remember little b falling asleep in his car seat and we stuck him under a table…lol. it was a wonderful day with friends and family.
[the little cutie pie]
happy friday y’all! enjoy this beautiful weekend! i sure will…we have lots going and can’t wait for the awesome weather this weekend.
we were so excited to have johnny, janice, georgia, and charlotte come to visit our new house and meet little olive!
they arrived at our house in the early evening. we decided it would be best to have a casual dinner night…pizza and beer! yum. hc toured them throughout the house and gave the usual spiel.
the girls settled down on the couch and cruised through the apple tv selection to find a movie. they snuggled in with their dolls and were quite content.
we broke open several beers and cheered to finally getting together. we chatted for quite a bit before we decided on what we were going to order. we tried a place called aurelio’s and it was delicious! we got some apps and ordered their specialty pie of the moment.
[georgia and charlotte {rich’s goddaughter!}]
[revolution brewery]
[janice and olive]
while we were waiting for the delivery, we had lots of fun catching up on all sorts of events. janice and i talked a lot about nursing, the guys did their talks, and we circled around to discuss more things like babies, triathlons, vacations, family, and life.
olive really took to johnny! oh, she loved him. she actually let him hold her and she giggled at him! awww, it was very sweet.
i love janice and johnny. they are such a cute couple and so fun. hc has been friends with them, what seems like forever! when rich and i first started dating, johnny and janice were so welcoming of me and we instantly hit it off. their humor are off the charts! we love it when we are able to get together with them.
olive also received the cutest gift from them! so, janice is from canada {oh canada!}…they got little olive a pink fleece set emblazoned with the words canada all over it. it’s just the cutest little outfit and we can’t wait until she can wear it!
[olive was very fond of johnny[
[joining us for dinner]
[aurelio’s pizza]
[these two cuties enjoying some desserts]
the pizza came, the beer was being guzzled, and good times were being had. how cute are georgia and charlotte? they are such sweet, kind, polite little ladies. they are growing up so fast!
the family brought the desserts, so after a bit, janice set them out and we devoured them! the tarts were so good! i loooved the chocolate, caramel, hazelnut one…to die for. it was amaze. it just melted in my mouth. yum. i could have eaten five of them…hehehe.
[delicious pastries from whole foods]
after several hours of hanging out and putting olive down in-between it, it was, sadly, time for the family to leave. we had a wonderful, wonderful time with them. thank you so much for the cute gift for olive and thank you for stopping by! come back soon! muwah!
dearest dana came to visit {finally}! after we moved, it was a constant debacle trying to get us together! our schedules weren’t coordinating. if we happen to have the same day off, she or i would already have plans, or she would be out of town, etc. welllll, we finally, last minute, got ourselves aligned! hallelujah!
she came over bright and early in the morning {no traffic…woo!}. i walked her through the house…a tour of what has happened {remodeled} and what was to come. we chilled at the house for a bit before heading out to brunch. dana tried multiple times to hold olive…um, fail. baby girl will only be in my arms if i am in the room *sigh*, i do wish she would let others hold her but a screaming, crying baby is no fun for anyone! dana, being dana, was so amused and found it so hilarious! thank goodness 🙂
[dear dana loving olive]
[olive giving a shoutout to the westside!]
[attempting at another round of holding olive]
so, after many tries of holding olive, we digressed and moved along on getting ourselves to the restaurant. i offered a few options and we settled on trying a place by our house. a breakfast place {new to us!} that we have been interested in trying for awhile.
[orange juice for dana, grapefruit/orange juice for moi]
it was cute inside and not busy {bonus!}. we settled into our seats and perused the menu. there were so many choices! i decided on the banana walnut pancakes with a side of bacon and dana went for the eggs over easy, hash browns, and a side of chocolate chip pancakes.
[banana walnut pancakes]
[noshing]
we did a lot of catching up over brunch. the food was yummy. the company was even better. we yapped for awhile, until olive was getting a bit fussy. it was good timing with the fact that we were dunzo…check paid, we were ready to go when olive started fussing. so, out the door we went!
we went back to the house to hang out some more. olive needed to eat her solids, so i prepared her food and asked dana if she wanted to feed her. gosh, miss olive answered that for all of us. she was liiiike, um no. momma is the only one who will feed me! what a picky lady! poor darling dana…olive wouldn’t even let her feed her!
[oh em gee…poor dana trying to feed olive…nope]
[flashdance…she’s a maniac, maniac on the floor!!]
after a few hours of lounging, dana headed out {before crazy traffic could build up}. it was fantastic to finally get together and just hang out {what we do best}. olive and i miss her already.
these wooden dip dyed spoons. it would make a great hostess gift or add some spunk to your kitchen. you can always use some lovely wooden spoons to stir some cookie batter or sautéed vegetables in a pan without scratching it!
so, i’ve been collaborating with a dear friend of mine around an upcoming event and she found this artist that i am currently obsessed with!!! i totally want a map made for us! how cool is this? such a beautiful piece of work…it’s a great conversation starter and just gorgeous to look at!
i’ve been obsessed lately with striped napkins. yes. black and white striped napkins like these. i love the look and they add such a great pop of fun to your table. it’s a great way to contrast against any bright color you choose to accent your table with.
i adore this jcrew factory necklace. it’s the perfect statement piece. it is neutral but impactful to any outfit. it’s great with a v-neck sweater, scoop neck t-shirt, over a classic button up, the possibilities are endless to snazzy up any outfit.
what a romantic birdcage. i envision this piece at a spring/summer bridal/bebe shower or as a gorgeous centerpiece for any fete at our house! it can be seasonal too, such as, for a christmas party…you can fill the inside with red berries and pine branches to give oomph to your holiday table decor! the possibilities are endless and this cage can definitely be used year round to elevate any presentation for your home.
this wire script is fantastic. it’s a perfect adornment to any room. especially a foyer, a great greeting for anyone to walk into! it’s simple, delicate, and inviting.
i find this gold dot pillow to be a perfect accent to any couch out there! it will add that pop needed to brighten up any room. it’s modern and sophisticated and will add pizazz to any sofa that needs a pick me up.
well, there you go. a few of my favorite things right now! i hope you were a wee bit inspired and delighted! happy shopping lovies!
we were so excited to have bought our house this past april. i love being a homeowner. i love being able to decorate, do whatever we want, jump up and down on the floor with no worries of neighbors down below. we love having a huge backyard. we love having more space. there are so many positive things with having your own house.
along with that, it’s a lot of work! with it being an older home, aesthetically, it was not to our tastes. we knew, when buying the house, that we would remodel the inside and then some. not my idea…it’s all hc’s grand scheming.
anyhoo, with all this, we are tackling one room at a time. it’s going to be a long process that’s going to take a lot of my patience! as our neighbor put it, you have your whole life to renovate and when you’re done…you will start again with the first room you remodeled!
the first room we took on was originally going to be olive’s room. hc started to renovate it when we decided to switch up the girl’s room. we decided, since grace was only with us, maybe, every other weekend at most, that olive should have the bigger room. after much debating, we concluded that it made more sense. so, grace’s room was the first to be finished!
[grace’s room…the before]
[grace’s room…after!]
hc repainted the room. he, first, redid the ceiling and then the walls. we then went to the home depot and grace picked out the green paint color to match her room {she did a great job selecting a perfect match}! hc redid all the trim {all the wood was an oakey color…blah!}, replaced all the outlets, replaced the closet doors, bedroom door, and added new hardware. he took out the windows, cleaned it inside and out, and repainted the entire frame.
the pencil drawings are from a very talented friend. i commissioned her to do the drawings…she loves, loves robots and i love, love her work. so, she created three very cool pieces of art! amaze. i cherish these drawings…so delighted to own such beautiful work.
the ferris wheel is a wonderful vintage piece. a couple years ago, hc, grace, and i took a trip to iowa to visit antique archaeology, one of our favorite shows! we were in awe over the shop…there were so many cool items! we perused the whole place up and down, fascinated by all the vintage objects. when i walked into the shop, the first thing that caught my eye was the ferris wheel. i loved it! well, so did grace. soooo, the lovely rusty piece came home with us and ended up in grace’s room!
her chair, lamp, shag rug, bed, and bedding are from ikea. the bookcase is vintage. her bedside shelf is from the container store. we bought the curtains at target and had them hemmed by hc’s mom. the pillows in her room are actually from our wedding!
grace’s room is fun and bright. i love how it turned out…of course it’s great, my wonderful hubby worked so hard on it!
june just flew by. oh my. so many good things that went on during that month!
we celebrated father’s day. we met up with so many of our friends. we had lots of visitors to our new house. our dear friends go married. baby olive had some wonderful milestones.
i loved june for it’s warm weather and fun filled days. olive and i spent many morning and afternoons together hanging out. i love being with my baby girl. i love going on walks with her. i love making her laugh. she is so sweet and serious. i love watching her grow but yet i want her to slow her roll! don’t grow up too fast!
i can’t believe june is over already. summer don’t fly by too fast. i love having you around.
below are a few snapshots of this past wonderful month. i hope y’all had a lovely june. enjoy my lovies!
[playing with her indestructible book // daddy feeding her]
[ffffpppttt]
[play/learning time]
[travis and olive being so cute]
[grilling]
[baptism dress…her baptism was really at the end of may but i had to include this beautiful photo of our baby girl]
[doing baby yoga]
[love her! nordstrom baby peter pan collar shirt + ruffled grey pants]
[sleepy time // one of her favorite toys]
[auntie missy feeding olive]
[yummy toes]
[taco night]
[cute cousins…olive loved being held by reagan like this]
[she was really tired and leaned over to sleep…baby yoga]
[vanilla bean ice cream with hazelnut chocolate wafers…yum!]
it was our second bridal shower that summer and it was hosted at dick and jane’s house {held outside in their backyard}. It was sooooo freakin’ hot that day! upper 90’s, sticky, hot, sunny, and humid. you did. not. stop. sweating, even when you sat very, very still. when our guests were arriving, i didn’t even give hugs…i waved at them. um, yeah. no touching when it’s that gross outside.
being engaged was definitely an amazing time in our lives. oh, i could relive these moments over and over. i loved all the joyous, celebratory, fun memories with all our friends and family. i always say it and i’ll say it again…our engagement and our wedding was like a dream come true. i loved every second of it! but i tend to really revel in a lot of things…i am so appreciative of all good things in life!
i absolutely love this picture of us. we were, obviously, being super silly gals in this photo. we love entertaining ourselves by being incredibly goofy when we take pictures. it makes for great laughs when you look back at them. i mean, c’mon. you can only take so many portraits, then you need to get creative to capture some fond, fun memories 😉
[oh! have some cake my dear!]
[p.s. i was so darn tan and skinny…those were the days!]
well, lovies…create some great memories today! i hope every has a fabulous day and weekend!
our fourth of july was very low key. a lot of relaxing and hanging out together. hc had yummy dinner plans and he even baked a pound cake for dessert! how awesome was that?!
when i arrived home, hc started whipping up some good eats {such an awesome hubby}. i was hungry {as usual…this nursing state makes me voracious}! we sat down for dinner and stated what we are grateful for {we do this every time we eat}, then filled our bellies up with some good grub. thank you hc for always making a delicious meal.
[olive had navy and white star shorts on buuutttttt she had an accident in them 🙁 therefore she didn’t have them on]
[a delicious dinner by hc // winner winner chicken dinner]
after dinner, i cleaned up and hc, olive, and grace went for a walk. once they were back, we started making our desserts. grace sliced up the strawberries, i pulled out all the toppings and plates, and we gathered around to assemble our treats!
[anthroplogie bowls]
[grace slicing strawberries for our desserts]
[my red, white, and blue peacock festive dessert!]
[i love to pout]
after dessert, hc and grace went out to the backyard to look for fireworks. hc actually caught a firefly! one of our summer to do’s! there weren’t many out there but we got one! we still have all summer to catch more!
i tried to keep baby olive up for some fireworks but she was tired. pooped. so, no fireworks for this little one. she went to bed!
[trying to stay of for fireworks]
after some quality time together, some festive desserts, and slightly catching a glimpse of the fireworks behind our trees, we were dunzo. that pretty much summed up our happy fourth of july!
my famille and i got together during the holiday weekend to get into some festive fun. we were able to check off another fun summer activity: going to a carnival!!
there were so many fests going on but we decided on the lisle summer fest, eyes in the sky. they had a lot of fun stuff going on there – kitschy shopping, greasy food, cheesy kid fun, & a carnival! we parked at benet academy and we were bussed in…it is so much easier than driving to the festival to find parking, it was a quick bus ride there!
once we got there, food was in order! actually beer was our first go to…unfortunately, the beer selection was subpar. hello?! where was the craft beer section?! after getting our libations, we trekked over to the food section. of course hc and the bro in law insisted on walking the entire area and then decide on what to eat. they had to assess all the options…oh goodness. once we walked the food section, we all split up and bought our entree of choice. holy cow! it was so freakin’ expensive! that’s a festival for y’all. a monopoly of vendors that hike up their prices for a quick, lucrative profit. hmph.
[god bless america]
[i don’t want milk…i want my toesies]
[italian ice]
[this picture cracks me up…it was so bright, they couldn’t keep their eyes open! bennett screamed, “i can’t see!!!!”.]
while we were eating our food in the picnic area {funnel cake anyone? yes, please}, tommy the hawk flew by in a golf cart. the kids went nuts! a slew of kids started running after him. it was hilarious. reagan and bennett went running towards him too. tommy the hawk started to throw out rolled towels! the kids went crazy, running back and forth so they could catch a towel! i ran out with the boys to encourage and help them. as tommy the hawk directed the kids to where he was going to throw the towel, he spotted me standing there…i knew he was going to throw the towel towards me! he had the kids run across the grass again to where i was standing, he threw the towel directly at me! it totally bounced off my hands and some dude totally swiped it from me when it bounced onto the grass! darn it!
they also handed out stickers and eventually, reagan caught a towel! woo! i’m so glad he did! reagan soooo wanted a picture with him so i got them to stand next to him and i snapped a photo! bennett was so nervous! he wasn’t completely scared but completely questioned the large, furry, human sized animal in front of him! that is why his eyes are closed. he didn’t want to directly look at him! lol.
[bennett was a bit afraid…but he did well…except for fearfully closing his eyes]
as we hung out at the fest, they started to blow up the hot air balloons! it was so cool to see. only at lisle fest is the only time i ever see hot air balloons…even as a kid! it never gets old.
after the eating, drinking, shopping, watching kiddie entertainment, we finally dragged ourselves into the carnival area. this festival was a money pit! oh em gee…everything was so expensive! i bought tickets so grace could possibly go on rides. we walked through the gaming area, the boys totally loved this part. they participated in how fast you can throw a ball and won blow up baseball bats…of course they chose the cubs!
grace played the game where you throw the balls and try to win a gold fish. wha wha. no goldfish but the girl definitely went on some crazy looking rides! she loves roller coasters and such. um, not me nor hc! we won’t go on such contraptions!
[auntie thuy always doting on olive]
[grace excited and ready to ride this scary machine]
[olive and daddy]
[bye bye carnival]
after a lot of fun, and it was really a lot of fun, we were spent {literally} and ready to go. it was a great time outside in the beautiful weather, i loved eating the greasy festival food, we had such fun with the famille, i enjoyed watching the kids having a wonderful time, and i am absolutely loving summer.
the wooden car is made with non toxic paint and is great for developing olive’s motor skills. hc claims that this is his favorite toy to date. olive loves to flip the colorful wooden slats back and forth and roll the car up and down. it’s such a cute, fun object…aesthetically pleasing and great for olive!
this indestructible book is awesome. baby girl loves to play with paper, so she loves ‘reading’ this book. sometimes i’ll make up stories for her with the pictures, other times she loves to just gnaw on the edges until it’s covered with drool. it’s doesn’t rip, it keeps it’s shape, and it’s washable. a perfect book for any baby!
when i threw a gender reveal party last summer, olive received some gifts from our wonderful guests. our dear friend dana gave olive these bath time cups. she actually loves playing with these without bath time! she grabs each cup, one by one and chews on them. she also loves it when we stack them high. in a second after stacking them, she will knock them all down with a smile. thanks dana for olive’s current favorite toy!
the baby beads are very similar to the wooden car. it’s made of wood and was painted with non-toxic paint. it’s colorful, so it’s pleasing to her eyes. she loves to grab at it and drool on it and work on her fine motor skills. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, i love buying wooden toys for olive!
i love, love these baby art cards! the contrasting colors are fun for olive and she loves to pick them up and drool all over them {common theme, right?!}. it also helps her grasp objets and fine tunes her motor skills. i love how she intently looks at them and i can see how she is examining their design {it makes me wonder what she is thinking!}. such great cards to support the babes development!
she loves the jumperoo. seriously, she loves it. she can sit in it for hours. bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, bouncy. she plays with all the fun contraptions on it, she gleefully laughs, and is entertained by all the fun sounds! it’s such a perfect, fun ‘toy’ for her. it keeps her curiously preoccupied for awhile and us hands free to do some stuff around the house. bonus points for everyone!
