Fun in the Valley of the Sun!

After a very long 6 days of having a sick toddler, my in laws asked if they could have the little man over for a sleep over. I was hesitant, because I'm a nervous Nelly like that, but Cass said she'd take me out for dinner and drinks, so I agreed! We decided to catch the end of the Saints game at Seamus McCaffrey's, which is one of our favorite little bars to visit. http://www.seamusmccaffreys.com This bar has such a diverse crowd, from hipsters to Senior Citizens, from the Rockabilly crowd to the sports lovers.We grabbed a sandwich and mozzarella sticks and decided on another of our favorite places, Crescent ballroom. http://www.crescentphx.com/ They have Flamenco Por La Vida every Saturday and it's free! I would recommend this to anyone! The ensemble consisted of a guitar player, a lady with an incredible voice, a male dancer and a female dancer. I would highly recommend checking it out if you are in the Phoenix area! It's a very warm and  intimate setting, and they were all so very talented!  We want to go back and take Cass's parents! Plus, you can grab drinks from the bar and they serve Mexican food.
Next we went, ice skating!! There is an impromptu ice skating rink set up in downtown Phoenix at City Scape, which they ever so cleverly call City Skate (I love it!). I think Cass had just enough drinks that I was able to convince her to go skating with me. It was hard. Very hard. We are Arizonans, we don't know how to ice skate! Luckily neither of us fell, however, we only went around the rink a few times.

We then headed to Hanny's. We had so much fun there! Hanny's was built in 1947 as a department store and was the bees knees at that time! It was later bought by the City of Phoenix and used to train firefighters, meaning it was caught on fire multiple times! They even have an open elevator that has a glass floor and you can see down to the bottom (shudders).Getting to the bathrooms is like walking through a room of mirrors and there is a really creepy replica of The Last Supper that is made out of dolls...in the basement (shudders again). That being said, they have a deli meat slicer in the bar where they slice fresh prosciutto and also have $5 martinis! The ambiance is different, but so much fun! I highly recommend having dinner and or drinks here! http://www.hannys.net/index.html

The next morning we had breakfast at Joe's Diner, where Joe himself came and talked to us. He is the nicest guy and takes pride in his restaurant. I had the biscuits and chorizo gravy- duhlicious!! http://joesdineraz.com/

We decided to take advantage of our babysitter and went to play a round of golf! I haven't played in probably 10 years or more, but it was so much fun! We aren't good by any means, but we had a blast. The weather was gorgeous, we started out in jackets and ended up in tank tops by the end! Gotta love AZ!

This golf course is walking distance from our house, although we took the El Camino.

This is my lady Cass, right after the golf club slipped out of her hand! We all laughed so hard! I'm glad I was able to get my phone out and snap a few pictures!

My good buddy, Lynds, laughed so hard she fell over! 

We had a wonderfully fun weekend, and I'm grateful to have family that want to watch our little man every now and then. I'm also grateful for the gorgeous weather and wonderful people in my life. 

I believe all of the places we went to were locally owned, and we try to support local businesses! 

Thanks for reading. I hope you're having a wonderful week! 

A Few of My Favorite Things: Home Edition

I recently was given a china cabinet from my mom. It has very quickly become one of my favorite pieces of furniture! C was worried, (and legitimately so), that it was going to become a messy catch all. I am not an organized person by any means, so of course it's had its messy days, however its the one item I seem to keep cleaning and reorganizing. I just took all of my Christmas decorations down  this week, so that meant I got to redecorate it again! I thought I'd share it with you.

The star was a Christmas gift from my 13 year old nephew who made it out of Saguaro ribs. Also, one of my favorite items! 

I love living in Central Phoenix and one of the perks is the old houses. We live in a house that was built in the 30's, and love it! We've talked about moving and looked at new homes, but they just don't have the old charm that this house has. Of course, it would be nice to have some of the amenities that go with a new home... like a dishwasher. :) Here are 2 things I love about our old home: 

Isn't that cool?

Our Beautiful front door. I know, its just a door, but it has so much character and totally reminds me of  cyclops with a mustache. Being an AZ girl, I have to point out the copper piece in the window. 

Last year my oldest nephew made us this for Christmas:

I'm not sure what it's called, but he said this is how people used to make guitars- he tuned it and everything! I love it! 

And here's another gift- from my brother. He made them for Albs; they are Sesame Street records that he framed. So cool and such a great idea! 

And then there's this:

C traced this saucy vixen and painted her one day when she was feeling artistic. At first I was not super crazy about her (the vixen), but that's when we had white walls. Now that we have super bright walls, she actually fits in and I love it! 

I wanted to share my excitement for my China cabinet, and show you some of the things that help give our small, old home character. While doing this post I realized that the boys in my family are good gift givers! I need to step up my game! 

Thanks for stopping by, hope you're having a great week! 

Tuesday Silliness

 I was a little stressed out this morning, due to lack of sleep and a sick little boy, but these made me smile so I wanted to pass them on...

I'm a sucker for bad puns and for overalls...purrfect! 

(I couldn't help it)

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I also saw this awesome giveaway from Cougar Town and an app called Drync. 

http://www.drync.com/cougartown

The giveaways are closed for today, but they are giving away 2 bottles of wine to 350 people a day until 01/13/14. I'll be entering this tomorrow morning! Let me know if you enter and win, I'm rooting for you! 

*Disclaimer- I have not used the Drync app at all and just learned of it today. I'd love to hear any feedback if any of you have used this app. 

Have a great week! 

Morning Routine

This morning I reflected on our morning routine and I have to say, I have a sweet life! Albert and I get up and I put on a pot of coffee, get him a cup of milk (this morning it was half almond milk, half whole milk and some chocolate syrup) and then make us some toast. Albert enjoys his toast, with fruit and sometimes cereal while watching PBS and I enjoy my coffee while reading blogs and articles online. Of course there are interruptions and it usually only lasts about an hour, but I get about an hour to enjoy my coffee and toast! There are some days that I feel guilty about not working and staying home with our little man, but I have more days and moments, when I am so thankful that I get to stay home with this kid! He's pretty much the Cat's Pajamas! 

Anyways, here are 2 articles that made me happy. Silly? Yes, but so am I, so happy reading!  

I've got adoption on the brain! http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/13-famous-people-who-were-adopted.htm#page=0

I have an irrational fear of natural disasters. Living in Arizona is perfect for me because we don't have tornadoes, hurricanes, or earthquakes, however we do have some pretty wicked lightning storms. This article made my cup of coffee even better! http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/02/22143525-lightning-strikes-killed-fewer-americans-than-ever-in-2013

Also, check out this blog! http://www.733blog.com/ the free printable section caught my eye! 

Looking forward!

2013 was an incredible year for us! We met our little boy, fell in love with him and are now blessed to be called his moms! It has been an incredible ride and more than I could have ever asked for!
 I have never really made New Year resolutions before, however this year I have a few things I would like to accomplish:

1.) I would like to travel a lot more. San Francisco, Tennessee and Maui are at the top of my list, but I also want to visit more of beautiful Arizona. I love the desert, forest and canyons and need to see more! We are constantly trying to support local, so that should include our travels.
b.) I want to shed some pounds. Drop some weight. Adios the love handles...I think you get the picture.
3.) I want to make things. I sometimes get intimidated by crafting ideas so I don't even try. This year I'd like to try some of those ideas- even if it means I'll fail.
4.) More time with my family and best gal pal.

Also,  I'm looking forward to a very big event this year:

ADOPTION!! Hopefully we will be adopting our little man very soon!

Do you have any New Years Resolutions this year? If so, what are they?

Pinterest Success!

 Yesterday, while on a cleaning frenzy, I was able to test one of the "uses for everyday items you never knew about" theories. You know, there are multiple pins out there with crazy ideas like applying salt to mosquito bites for relief or using dryer sheets for everything from cleaning water spots to curing the bird flu. I decided to try using toothpaste to clean crayon marks off of the wall. In the past, I have not been able to get the red marks off, so I figured I had nothing to lose but a little bit of toothpaste. I applied the toothpaste to the crayon marks and let it sit for about ten minutes then wiped it off with a warm, wet cloth. It worked!! I had to put in a little elbow grease, but the marks are gone! I was so excited! I read that it had to be toothPASTE and not a gel, so that's what I used...I wonder if the gel would work the same? Have any of you tried using the gel or any other of these theories?

Upcycled Leg Warmers

Hello! Less than a week until Christmas and of course, I'm just still working on some of the presents. This was so easy and fun for me because I got to embroider (yay!). I had a sweater that no longer fits me, but I just love it and its over sized buttons, so I decided to make leg warmers out of the sleeves. I've never done this before so it was a trial and error for me... I used a seem ripper to remove the first sleeve from the shoulder area , but once I got it completely off I realized It was an odd shape and I had to cut it.  I simply cut the second sleeve off starting at the arm pit seem and cutting a straight line up. It was much faster and looked the same as the other one.

 This is what the sleeves looked like after I cut them off. You can see the raw edge where they were cut...it's not cute at all and honestly reminded me of 80's gym attire :) I sent a picture to my mom who suggested I do a blanket stitch on top to church it up a little. If you don't know how to do a blanket stitch, you can watch this tutorial here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXkSE2TTF4ss it is a very simple stitch and very cute. I picked a peachy color of embroidery floss that I already had.  Again, this was trial and error for me- I tried to do the blanket stitch on the raw edge and it just didn't look good at all. I found it was much easier and looked much nicer after I folded the edge over, pinned it in place and then did the blanket stitch. Once I finished the embroidery, I removed two of the buttons from the sweater and sewed them on with the embroidery floss. I was very happy with the outcome and hope the recipient of this gift will be too!

Now I've got to decide if I'm going to use the left over sweater for an ugly sweater party or attempt to make boot cuffs out of it. Every time I look at it I just wanna throw on a mullet wig and rock this at a party! 

Thanks for stopping by and if I don't post again before Christmas, then I hope you have a wonderful holiday surrounded by people you love.