tapas and martini party

our friends, leah and stevo hosted a tapas and martini party the other weekend.  everyone brought a small plate and ingredients to make whatever martini they chose!

 

i found 2 pinterest ideas for small plates.

 

one was cream cheese and onion pinwheels with red peppers and parsley.  these turned out delicious and i may or may not have eaten about 6 of them after they came out of the oven!

before cooking

 



after cooking

ready to go!

 

my other recipe was pizza balls.  basically, pepperoni and cheese inside of a biscuit and served with sauce.  these didn't turn out quite as yummy as i expected.

 

prepping

 

before cooking.  i forgot to take a pic after they were done!



 

 

 

i also brought ingredients for an upside down pineapple cake martini.  this was amazing!

 

 

 

 

we had a fun time!

fall is here!

fall is my favorite season and i'm so glad it's here!  i was ready to decorate the house in september.  we were so busy wedding planning this time last year that we didn't get a chance to do any decorating or carve pumpkins!  so this year i'm making up for it!

 

inside halloween wreath.  if you look closely, you'll see the glitter spiders.

 

outside halloween wreath

 

 

i'm sure i'll continue to add to it!

 

next, pumpkins!!!



 



sarah and justin are engaged!!

2 of our best friends and neighbors, sarah and justin celebrated their 6th anniversary on september 21.  to celebrate, they took a trip to nashville, tn (so jealous!)  all of us back home had hopes of something magical happening and our wishes came true!  justin popped the question and of course sarah said YES!

 

as soon as we found out, leah, jess, and i got to work planning to decorate their house for their return!  we actually had A LOT of fun doing it and i think they were pretty surprised when they got home!!

 

 

congratulations!!!!!!



tater turns 1!

tater turned 1 on september 14.  we didn't know him a year ago since we adopted him in december so i knew i wanted to throw him a birthday party!  i know it sounds silly for a kitty to have a party but oh well!  we  invited a few friends over, i made some snacks, sarah made tuna cupcakes for tater, and we had a good time!  thanks everyone for celebrating with us!

 blowing out his candle

 the girls and tater

me and my birthday boy!



color me rad

in october, sarah, leah, pam, christine, and i (and lots of others) will be doing the color me rad 5k.

i've never been a runner.  i can walk for miles and miles but running has never interested me.  leah, sarah, and i have been doing weekly walking for awhile now but we just haven't really seen the results we were hoping for.  we always joked about running more but it's hard to vent about life and run too.  the venting always won out.

 

so, a friend of mine invited me to run in the color me rad 5k.  never done one.  honestly, i thought the 5k meant 5 miles.....whoops.  i checked it out and became excited about the idea of people throwing colored cornstarch at me.  i also really wanted the tshirt and sunglasses that come with your entry fee.  so, i rounded up a group of friends who also like to walk/run and we registered!  i'm really excited. 

 

i'm only worried about what outfit i'm going to wear and how long the color is going to be stuck in my hair!!

 

 

to get prepared, leah, sarah, and i have begun the couch to 5k training program.  we are on week 3 and it's going well!

 

we like to mix in a friday night of "wine jogging".  we're feeling good and whether we walk the 5k or run it, i think we'll feel much more confident about our results!

 

i'll post the results after oct. 27!!  does this mean i can put one of these on my car?  :)

 

 

 



new wreaths

i feel like the blogs lately have been pretty boring.  so, instead of blogging about everyday life, i'm gonna try to stick more to pinterest ideas and fun events!

 

so, i started this 1st wreath back before 4th of july.  it looked really easy and it WAS but it took wayyyyy more time than i expected and wayyyyy more ribbon than i planned on!  sarah and i found some discount ribbon around the 4th of july week and i bought at least 7 rolls thinking that would be more than enough.  well, i ran out about halfway through.  time got away from me and 4th of july passed by and i wasn't very motivated to finish.  with labor day coming up, i decided to buy some felt (cause it's thicker and would use up more space) and complete the project!  this was the finished wreath done just in time for labor day weekend!

 

 

 

as much as i love the look of these wreaths, the amount of supplies and time it took to tie all these pieces was a little much, even for me!

 

now september is here and i've been pinning lots of fall wreaths on pinterest.  i want halloween wreaths too so fall is going to have to be september/november.  this was an idea i'd wanted to do for awhile.  i've never worked with yarn for a wreath and the felt flowers were much easier than i expected!  the yarn does take a VERY long time to wrap around the wreath.  i kept thinking of how many wreaths i could've made with ribbon in that amount of time!  anyway, this is the 1st fall wreath.  i think it turned out almost like the picture!!  (it's brown, not black.)

 

 

tater enjoyed helping with this wreath.  he still carries around that piece of yarn.

 

 

 



pizza casserole

i've gotten into another cooking funk this summer.  after grocery shopping with johnathan the other night, i got in the mood to try out another new recipe over the weekend.

pizza casserole

basically, it's pasta w/ tomato sauce, hamburger, cheese, and pepperonis put together and baked to make a casserole.  there are several changes you can do to the recipe to switch it up a bit.  anyway, it made a lot and was very good!  next time, i will make a smaller one!



end of summer vacay :(

summer vacation for my teacher friends and i is quickly coming to an end on friday!  i'm sure many people are having the same feelings that i am....sad, nervous, and excited.  this has been a really fun summer full of new adventures.  let's recap a few of the best...

girls beach trip to wrightsville beach

5th of july party

summer concerts 2012

beach weekend with johnathan

moving into my new classroom

wine and pizza party

new york trip

it's been a great summer!!

a pinterest classroom

 this summer, i've been pinning a lot of things on pinterest for classrooms.  i usually just pin stuff and never really go back to look at it.  last year a few days before school started, i decided to change my theme from stars to polka dots!  it was a much more difficult switch than i imagined but i really enjoyed the new theme!  with my new school adventure this year...and new HUGE classroom to decorate....i decided to up my game and really go all out with the polka dots.  this has kept me really busy this summer!  i feel like all i do is craft!  i've even gotten my friend jenn into crafting!  here are some of my pinterest projects.

POLKA DOT BOXES

i've always kept my monthly classroom stuff in computer paper boxes.  they weren't pretty but they were high on a shelf and i kind of forgot about them.  in my move, i reorganized them and was able to condense them into 4 boxes....but they were still ugly!

i saw on pinterest where a lady had covered some diaper boxes in fabric to make cute decorative boxes.  i figured my boxes were about the same size so i could do it too!  i chose wrapping paper instead of fabric cause it's so expensive!  it took longer than i expected but here's what they looked like in the end.

then i made some lables and attached them with ribbon.

my trusty assistant helped by laying on paper and eating ribbon.

TRANSPORTATION TAGS

i've always used posters with our buses and kid's names for transportation.  i left them behind because i'm pretty sure there won't be any blue whales or silver sharks busses at penny road.  i found this idea on pinterest as well.  i'm going to put each student's name and bus #/carpool #/bus color (whatever we use) on a clothespin and hook it on!  my friend jenn made her own version of these and they're super cute too!

DOOR WREATH

after i saw my room, i found out my door already has a hook in it.  what's perfect for a hook?  a wreath of course!  i looked for school wreaths and everything was either crayons or school themed.  it took me awhile to get a vision for this wreath but i finally ended up with cupcake holders and letters for my name.  my plan is to have all the kid's names on polka dots with the wreath in the middle and my title being "the polka dot patch". 

there are a few more projects to do at school but i think these will be all my crafts for right now!