Meeting Rory

In all the action that has gone on in the last couple of weeks, I haven't updated at all about my new nephew, Rory.

Lauren had her second son early in the morning the day after Valentine's day.

Because of my schedule, I decided that I was just going to visit them over this past weekend so that I could spend some time with everyone.

I headed up early on Saturday morning and came back home on Sunday.

It was so nice to see Liam and Lauren and Kevin.  And GREAT to get to see Rory, that handsome little devil.  :)

Liam loves your phone :)

This is Rory James.  He is so handsome, it kills me.  Watch out ladies!

I love him so much already!

And my visit wouldn't be complete without a snuggle with my girlfriends.  I feel like a bit of a pied piper when I visit the Houses.  Those dogs follow me every where.

Happy Birthday Kayla!

Today is Kayla's 3rd birthday.  I can't believe it was already three years ago that I was driving down to the hospital late on a Friday night to meet this little one.

She totally rocks my world and I hope that she and I maintain a close relationship as she gets older.

Cookie Party Recap

Sorry I am overdue with this post.  It's been a busy couple of days since the party.  Samson and I had a rough Sunday and I stayed home on Monday to keep an eye on him.

Anyways, the party was great.  A good mix of people and most came and stayed for a pretty decent amount of time.  I'm glad so many of my family could come out and a few friends who happen to be in town at the perfect time!

I tried to snag a few photos of the layout before everyone arrived - and an outfit shot, because I know at least one of you would ask...

In my cleaning frenzy that morning, I had to move all the wrapped presents from the floor of my dining room to under the tree (really where they belong).  I definitely think gifts under the tree completes the whole "Christmas tree" feeling.  Only downside - less of my cute tree skirt was showing! :)

I borrowed the drink bucket from my parents again which works out perfectly to stick cold bottles of wine and beer in.  That way people don't have to grab stuff from the kitchen.  It's not showing in this picture, but you can see it in the background of the photo of Samson.

The buffet that I DIY from the Ikea shelves, is the perfect place to layout the drink section.

This year I made a few more appetizers than I did last year.  Surprisingly, I still had a lot of cookies leftover after the party.  My family will be happy I still have some for next week.

Finally, this is officially becoming Samson's spot during parties.  He provides him the escape from people's feet, but also gives him prime location to scout innocent party goers who are willing to give him treats.

As soon as I put the cookies out he started camping out there.  My guardian.

As for what I wore, it was kind of spur of the moment.  I like this shirt because it's festive without being obnoxious.  That being said, there were quite a few Christmas sweaters at my party.  I may have to think about that for next year.

After spending countless hours watching youtube tutorials on vintage hairstyles and all the makeup application tutorials, I feel pretty confident that I can get a very vintage look without too much work.  It's definitely becoming my go to look for parties.

 The shirt I got last year from Express; skirt is old from Macys.

Finally, a closer look at the hair and makeup thanks to a goofy Instagram selfie.

Happy 3-0 Melissa!

Today is Friday (yay)!  And it's also Melissa's 30th birthday.

Even though I am having a seriously frustrating day, I am looking forward to seeing her and her family this evening for the Evanston Christmas festivities.

Vintage Shopping Weekend

In a pretty quick turn of events, my weekend's tentative plans completely changed.  I had originally planned to meet up with Brooke and Sprangers on Friday evening and hang out with Brooke for a bit on Saturday, but none of that ended up happening.

While I was in Austin on Thursday, I got an email from the pin up photographer to see if I could come and work her photo booth at this vintage fair going on downtown.  Of course, I said yes because I knew it was supposed to be over by 8pm.  After a flurry of activity on Friday afternoon and with Brooke and Spranger's plans changing as well, I ended up staying pretty late at the fair.  I did manage to snag a couple of photos though.  The theme was punk and paper dolls - you can see my "paper doll tabs" in the second picture. :)

I did some window shopping that night and found some really great items.  It was an accessories fair so there was a TON of jewelry and hats and there was some clothing.

I convinced my mom late that night to go back with me on Saturday.  My aunt, Lindy, met us down there and we spend about 5 hours browsing and shopping.  All of us managed to find at least one thing, but I definitely hit it big.  

I got a great jacket....

and amazing floor length velvet opera cape (with the original tag)

this adorable hat

and a nice necklace (no picture sorry).

I tried on SOOO many hats between Friday night and Saturday.  I love hats.  I think I need to just make that my thing... hats. :)

Here are two I didn't end up getting.

I had a blast hanging on with my mom and aunt and it reaffirmed my love of vintage shopping.  While I may not be able to fit most of the vintage clothes (why were all the women so tiny), I can certainly partake in the accessories!

#71 - Babysit Kayla for a weekend

Back when I added this to my list, my thought was "It will be great.  I can take Kayla for a weekend so Melissa and Justin can be back to a one kid family for a night."

Well, this past weekend was Melissa and Justin's 4 year anniversary and months ago they had asked me if I would be willing to babysit both of the kids so they could go out of town for the weekend.

Knowing that I would most likely be overwhelmed with both kids and my own furry baby, I solicited my mom to help me.

And BOY was I right.  For the most part, they were really easy kids.  The difficultly mainly came at night when I was up lying on the floor of Kayla's room because she wouldn't release the death grip she had on my hand and then Brody woke up crying.

I honestly don't know how you single parents or parents who have to be single parents occasionally.

So even though my list said babysit Kayla, I'm counting it because we had a 1:1 kid/adult ratio. :)

They were good kids and I managed to snap a couple photos while eating dinner (sorry they are blurry) to send to Justin so they would stop texting me.  :)

Kayla loves to watch videos on the ipad.  Gigi was trying to find some good ones for her.

Paris Adventures (Part 2)

*Read about the start of our trip and our four days in Barcelona HERE and the first part of our trip in Paris HERE.

Day 8 (9/16)
Another day of drizzly rain.  We walked down to the Louvre, which was really only a few blocks from our hotel.  The Louvre is HUGE.  The building used to be the Royal Palace before Versailles.  While majority of the artwork is not my particular favorite (lots of religious art), the sculptures were pretty cool and you have to be there.  As someone that enjoys art, I really liked it.  It just took a LONG time to get through.

Afterwards, we walked down to the street to Angelina's - a tea room well known for their pastries.  It was delicious.  I had a simple club sandwich and we picked up some desserts to eat when we got home that night.

After we dropped our things off, we walked over to Notre Dame to do that tour.  I forgot to mention that we did buy a two day Paris pass, which got us past lines at many places (like the Louvre and the D'Orsay Museum...totally worth it).

Grammy - I said a quick prayer at St. Therese for you.

After Notre Dame, we crossed the Sienne to find St. Etienne Du Mont Church which I had found on a list of things to see.  But it was closed. :(

We were pretty tired from all the walking and the Louvre, so we grabbed some crepes from a local cafe and ate in our room to dry off and rest our sore legs.

Day 9 (9/17)
We woke up and were taking our time getting ready.  Unfortunately, we got out days mixed up and ended up having to scramble to take the metro to make our Paris Catacombs tour on time.  We made in (only 5 minutes late)!  The catacombs was pretty cool.  It's an interesting story.

One of two sculptures in the Catacombs

After the tour, we went to the Museum D'Orsay.  We skipped the long line to get in and took our time going through.  It is definitely smaller than the Louvre, but it features the types of art I really like.  Impressionists, post-impressionists, etc.  The rooms were a lot tighter than at the Louvre which made it frustrating to try to look at paintings while people were crowding around the well-known ones.  Typical museum.

Afterwards, we decided (in the rain) to take the metro over to the Champs-Elysees and head to dinner at a restaurant recommended to us - Le Relais de L'Entrecote.  We made a pit stop at Laduree, a famous pastry shop to pick up some macarons for later.   Anyways, back to L'Entrecote.  We were told that they don't take reservations and there would be a line, so we go there about 20 minutes before it opened and waited in line to get in.  We were like 7th in line, so we were sure we would get in first.  Their premise is pretty simple.  Everyone sits.  There is no menu.  You get a house salad, steak (cooked rare, medium or well) and fries.  You get two servings of the steak and fries, which is really just half your steak first and then the other half later.  Then you can choose a dessert from their menu.  The food was good.  The steak came with this green sauce which was delicious.  It was interesting to eat in a place like this.

Day 10 (9/18)
On our last day in Paris, we were pretty tired and pretty tired of being wet.  We decided to buy tickets to take the hop-on, hop-off buses and just ride around the neighborhoods and get off when we wanted.  We took the tour to the Luxembourg Gardens and walked around a little bit.  Then we got back on and rode around until we were hungry.  We hopped off to have lunch at Le Deux Magots and then got back on the bus.

After riding three routes of buses, in the rain - we were pretty much done for the day.  We took one final lap past the Moulin Rouge, which I wanted to see.  Gotta say, I was overall underwhelmed.  In the daylight at least, it looks pretty run down.  Also it's on a street in the artsy district that is loaded with girls clubs and sex shops.  Vaguely reminiscent of my neighborhood I guess. :)

We headed back early, picked up some crepes for dinner and packed up for our trip home in the morning.

I had so much fun on this trip - seeing so much and spending time with my mom and dad.  Honestly, I was feeling pretty tired and frustrated with the inability to really communicate with people, so I didn't do any shopping in Paris.  Something I will have to rectify with another trip. :)

Paris Adventures (Part 1)

*Read about the start of our trip and our four days in Barcelona HERE.

Day 5 (9/13)
We left Barcelona in the morning and arrived in Paris around lunch time.  Sidenote, the security in Europe is NOT like in the US.  I would travel in Europe anytime.

When we got to Paris it was raining....  which would be the daily weather for majority of the time we were there.  We got to our hotel, the Westin Paris Vendome which was a really cool and beautiful hotel - maybe just a little bit loud....  thin walls and doors.

After we unpacked and got settled, we decided to just push through the drizzly rain and walk down the street towards the Louvre and the Sienne.  Then, we walked down the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe.

We stopped at Cafe Du Colannade for dinner before we had our ghost/mystery tour.  Our tour guide, Michele, was nice and funny.  Mom was fascinated by his glass pipe that he smoked most of the time we were walking and I liked that he was wearing fangs.  Totally in character.  The tour was interesting and nice to walk around a bit of Paris at night.  Did you know that the real story of the demon barber, Sweeney Todd, is actually from Paris?  After the tour, we wandered past the Louvre at night.





Day 6 (9/14)
Another day of drizzling rain.  We were pretty tired from the day before so we decided to sleep in, which ended up being around 10:30am.  Even with the rain, we pushed through and walked up to the Basilica Sacre Coeur.  Maybe the second most famous cathedral in Paris.  It was beautiful (even in the rain) and was sitting high up on the hill above the city. After our tour, we wandered upon a little square with restaurants and a ton of local artists selling their goods.  Both my mom and I bought paintings from two different artists and we sat at one of the cafes for lunch.

After lunch, we wandered over to the Parc Monceau, down past the cemetery and over to the Tower Eiffel.  The rain just would not let up and both of us were tired and sore and wet and cold.  We headed back to the hotel early.  My mom commented while looking at the map that we had walked FAR that day and we ordered room service and watched BBC reality game shows.

Day 7 (9/15)
Finally, a day with NO RAIN.  And it could not have come at a better time since we had our day trip out to Versailles Palace.  (Our tour guide also let us stop at the Arc de Triomphe while it was nice out.)  This was probably my favorite part of the trip.  The palace was incredible and we didn't even see most of it.  The tour we were on got us VIP access to the private apartments which are not open to the general public.  That was pretty cool.  It also got us in right away past the lines so that we could see the famous Hall of Mirrors without many people in it.  After that, we headed up to the gardens.  We went on a day that they were having the fountain shows which was awesome.

 

When we got back to Paris, we decided to take advantage of the nice weather while we head it and headed down to the Eiffel Tower to see it lit at night.  Hands down the coolest thing ever.  I know it's super tourist, but I loved it.  We saw it twinkle once while we were walking there and then waited around to see it again.  It twinkles for 5 minutes every hour.  After that, we stopped to eat at this cafe on the Sienne and got to see it twinkle one more time before we headed back to the hotel.

Stay tuned for Part 2.