The view from here with a side of angel wings

We finally purchased our first patio set and I l-o-v-e it! It only took us three years and a million trips to different stores to find it, but hey, we found it! I had a vision of what I wanted our patio furniture to be and I couldn't find it for the life of me anywhere. Every summer I would be on the look out for the perfect one for us, but I never saw it. Then this weekend, Saturday to be exact, I told Justin "we are going to go buy a set, whether we find the perfect one or not." I wanted to sit outside and eat dinner at this table and I was willing to compromise my perfect idea to get one. But lucky us, we found the perfect one at Fred Meyer, who would have thought?!

Side note: I am having a love hate relationship with blogger. It was giving me trouble uploading my pictures and I fight with it daily to put my pictures in the order I want. So pictures are a little out of order, if anyone knows how to fix it, please let me know!

Here I am enjoying sitting outside on our new furniture!

Here it is. It is starting to get super hot outside, especially in our neighborhood since we don't have many trees to provide shade. I was worried it would be too hot to sit outside most days, but with the umbrella out, it provides awesome shade.

The view from our backyard (ignore our undone backyard. It's a work in progess). Oh, and the term the Evergreen state only applies to western WA =)

And lastly, my angel wings. By now hopefully you all know how much I love angel wings, since I do have it etched in my skin forever =) I found not one, but two different angel wing necklaces in D.C. while I was doing some shopping. It is hard to find angel wing pieces. Or I should say it is hard to find angel wings that I love. I have a pair of earrings that my tattoo is modeled after. But I am in love with this necklace. The other necklace I found is similar to this but it's shorter and I forgot to take a picture of it.

So needless to say sitting outside on my new patio furniture wearing my angel wing necklace turned out to the be the perfect day! Simple pleasures I guess =)

Happy Monday my friends,

Somewhere in between

When I look back on my life, I want to say that I lived my life with no regrets. It's very easy for me to lounge around my house most of the day and not get anything accomplished. I mostly blame it on my work schedule, but I know that people with my exact same work schedule get a whole lot more done than I do. So I can't use that excuse entirely. But it is partially to blame =) I want to get a lot done on my days off; I want to clean my house, visit with my friends, build my relationships with everyone, be creative and crafty, work on my photography, play with my animals, and to top it all off, I still want to be pregnant. *sigh* I want it all, but I don't have the energy most days. I love going out and do some shopping or getting errands done. But every time I do, I tend to see pregnant ladies everywhere. And my heart breaks just a little each time. I love Target, but apparently pregnant ladies flock to Target all.the.time. I have nothing against them personally, it's just that I am so insanely jealous of them. It almost seems cruel to let me experience it for a while before it gets taken away. Maybe if I had never experienced pregnancy symptoms, or seen the little flutter of a heartbeat on an ultrasound, I wouldn't know what to be jealous of. But now that I know, it makes me just that more saddened when I see total strangers who have what I want.

So here I stand, somewhere in between totally losing my mind and complete happiness. It's not a bad place to be most times. It's starting to feel like home to me actually. But the great thing is that I still have my family, and dogs, and Justin to help occupy this space with me. I don't want to stay here forever, but in the mean time I will try and make it home...

And speaking of babies, I threw a baby shower for a good friend of mine this weekend. My other friend and I made a diaper cake for the shower. And did I mention that I am in love with diaper cakes?! We made one for another friend a few months ago and we were hooked! We actually have been daydreaming about turning our new found love into a business. A side business of course. We had so much fun making them, we thought "we want to make these all the time...and get paid for it!" So if anyone in the eastern WA area wants a fabulous diaper cake made, we are your ladies =)

Happy Saturday my friends,

Motivation

I need to get motivated. I have a hundred and one things to do and I just absolutely want to do none of them. I am co-throwing a baby shower this friday that I desperately need to get ready for, I need to clean my entire house, and after a few days of stuffing my face eating nonstop, I need to work out. I have all the best intentions for doing them, but zero motivation. It doesn't help that I stayed up for about 26 hours straight yesterday so now I am feeling the after effects of it. All I want to do is this...

My dogs have the right idea. Sleeping all day sounds like the perfect thing to do! But I can't even do that. I tried taking a nap earlier which failed since I was up thinking about all the things I need to do! *sigh*

Ok, now after I complained and threw a quick pity party for myself, I will tell you all that I did get a bunch of stuff done yesterday for the baby shower coming up. It's not completely unplanned right now. Plus, there is another person helping throw it. I have to work the next two nights so will only have Thursday to finish everything...but it will get done, and it will be fabulous! I sometimes do my best at the last minute. I am after all the girl who doesn't pack until midnight for her early morning flights =) But instead of doing what I need to get done, I decided to blog about all the things I need to do instead of working on them. And that...is how I roll =)

And on a completely different note, I would like to ask you all to take a moment and say a quick prayer for a blogger who just lost her baby. He was born with congenital heart defects and went to be with God a few days ago. I cannot imagine the heartbreak they are going through right now. Please say a quick prayer. Thank you!

Happy Tuesday my friends,

Just a few of my favorite things...

Well folks, summer is here and I am not as in shape as I'd like to be. And since I want to look cute in all of my summer dresses, I beefed up my workout and beauty regime! I am actually in Washington D.C. right now with Justin who is doing training for his work. We got to do some sight seeing over the past weekend, but during this week he is in training ALL day, like no joke, 7 am-10 pm. I don't want to go sight seeing by myself, honestly, it kind of freaks me out to be in a big city I don't know by myself. So I am spending most of my time in the hotel room =) But I do plan on venturing out and doing some shopping nearby.

I wasn't sure if I would be able to work out here at the hotel, so I bought the 30 Day Shred to do here in the hotel room. Or I could just sit outside for a few hours in this crazy humidity, and I'm sure I would sweat off the pounds!

This DVD has three levels, and I am on level 1 and it kicked my butt the first day! I don't work out hard core, but I am also not completely inactive, so I thought level 1 would be easy. Ha, I was so wrong! I'm hoping by the end of 30 days, I shred some serious pounds, I will let you all know.

I used this lotion/self tanner before my wedding, and loved the results. Everyone always feels better tanner right?! I am only on day 3 of using it and already see a change. Love it!

I am in love with this makeup. Before, I used MAC and it was ok. I don't wear a whole bunch of make-up anyway, so I love the way this looks and feels (and supposedly it's better for your skin.) The mascara is also a favorite of mine.

And I have been rocking out to anything and everything lately! While I work out and just hanging out. I have been listening to anything from B.o.b to Jack Johnson. Music puts me in a better mood, too bad I can't carry a tune.

Now that I'm done promoting these products (I swear I'm not getting paid for this =) ) I'm off to go shopping! I wanted to share some of my favorite things with you all since I'm in the giving mood right now =)

Happy Tuesday my friends,

Baby Benjamin

Well baby Benjamin is finally here! I was joking to Katie that she had to hold him in until I got home from Kansas, and she did her best! He was born an hour before I landed in Washington. I finally am putting up some pictures I took of them the first few days.

He is a sweet little man with red hair already.

Seeing Katie go through this experience has been sad for me, I'm not going to lie. Sad because I wanted the belly bump too, to decorate a nursery, to decide what my birth plan will be, and to go through all the hard and loving work of labor to finally hold a special someone like this in my arms.

But for now I will settle for being Auntie Elise and continue celebrating this beautiful life with my friend. Because it really is something to celebrate.

Welcome to the world baby Benji!

Happy Monday my friends,

We're not in Kansas anymore!

For those of you that didn't know, I was in Kansas this past Memorial Day weekend to visit family. Family I haven't seen in years. I moved to WA from Kansas when I was about 7 years old and have only been back a few times since then. I have a.lot of family there and a weekend was not enough time to catch up! But we did our best and I really enjoyed it there. It's funny to see how after all these years, some people are just as you remember them. And houses seem bigger in your memories than in real life. And your love for your family you haven't seen in forever is still there.

(Don't mind my bad hair day up above. It was late and a long day!) I took many pictures but didn't want to upload them all since it takes f.o.r.e.v.e.r to upload them onto blogger. If anyone has any suggestions on how to speed up that process, I'm all ears! Above is my uncle, me, and my cousin.
I was expecting hot weather there, but not wind. I absolutely hate the wind! We have enough wind here in Washington, I was hoping to get away from it. But nope, it seemed even worse in Kansas! *sigh* Oh well, at least it was still hot most of the weekend.

Can you spot me?! Hint, I'm in the front row ; ) This is my family on my dad's side. I love how in large group pictures, there are always people doing random things, and not every single person is smiling at the camera. Haha! I wish we could have spent more time there, and I hope it's not another 10 years before I see them again.

However, I did have a pretty important reason to head back. My friend's baby was born on the day I flew home! I kept telling her to hold him in until I get back! So he was born one hour before I landed in Washington. At least he waited until the day I came back, what a good boy ; ) Pictures and a post on him coming soon.

Happy Wednesday my friends,