happy birthday ash!

so this weekend, i had the joy of celebrating ashley turning a quarter of a century- and attend a shower for little rhett! it was a great time celebrating and recognizing the sweet friendship we share. because of her current situation (strict bed rest) we took both parties to her and had a great time watching the uga/auburn game at her folks house along with our husbands, her parents and inlaws, and her cousin and her best friend and their kids. no football party would be complete with out chili and dips, so i brought along my white chicken chili, my avocado relish, and some homemade salsa- one of charlie's favs. add to that her chili, some yummy buffalo chicken dip, a veggie tray, and more and you've got a party! but to really make the celebration complete, i surprised ash with a birthday cake that i worked extra hard on. check it out- it was a giant homemade cookie cake with icing, and vanilla cake pops decorated in uga and auburn colors along with some cake ball footballs. it was quite a hit :)

i must brag on the vendor i ordered the sprinkles from- i wanted blue sprinkles for the auburn pops, and i stumbled upon this awesome bakery supply store. i highly recommend them! check out sweetbakingsupply.com

here's a few pics of the work in progress- i didnt get any of the pops process because i was the only one home and lets just say i made the most epic mess ever. oops.

happy birthday ash! so glad you are my friend and you were born 25 years ago!

surprise birthday party

hi friends!

hope you all enjoyed a great 4th of july.

its pretty cool to get to live in such an amazing country, and nathan and i enjoyed the opportunity to recognize the birthday of this great country yesterday!

speaking of birthdays, i haven't gotten to share about my sweet birthday surprise!
so last thursday, we were planning on going to Movies in the Park at Atlantic Station with our LifeGroup (thats Sunday School class at our church). i had done a lot of the planning (or so i thought) and had arranged for those that were going to meet up there to eat and then watch Grease on the lawn. i was excited of course and looking forward to it. nathan and i had decided to meet at home to ride together up there and he was running late which was kind of bothering me. he finally got there and we made our way up and when we did park, he made me turn around because he said he had gotten me something and didnt want me to see it. so i'm thinking, maybe a little cake or something for dessert. no big deal. so we head up the stairs to the parking deck and are walking over to california pizza kitchen by way of the lawn. i noticed that it was very full so i said we should go ahead and put our blankets down so that we have a spot. he said sure and pointed me to a corner and as i was walking, i noticed that i recognized a group of people. yes, my friends from LifeGroup were there, but there was another bevy of beautys i noticed!

christina, me, lydia, & erin- we all went to berry together :)

my college friends were there! what! what a surprise! and not only that, but they had coolers full of my favorite foods and 2 boxes of cupcakes from Cami Cupcakes. it really was a sweet surprise.



yes please! SUPER yummy cupcakes!



me & sarah- nathan's other sister

me & ash

me & hannah- nathan's sister

we picniced and ate and ate and ate and then enjoyed grease. it really was a great time. i highly recommend cami cupcakes- they were moist, not too sweet, and beautiful! check them out!
http://www.camicakes.com/

my birthday extravaganza!

so as many of you know, yesterday was my birthday...the big 2-3! i know, i know- i'm getting old :)

let me just start by saying that i have been blessed with some incredible people in my life. my friends, my family, and now my husband- they are all just great. as much as i enjoy a good celebration and a day all about me, i can't help but reflect on all the special people who have played a big part in my 23 years on this earth....from the dr that delivered me to the people i currently have on speed dial- and all the folks in between. i am truly blessed.

tuesday, i took a half day off work and mom and ash met me to go do a little shopping day at perimeter. early that morning though, ash called me and had a surprise for me- she had made me a pumpkin apple streusel cake for breakfast and brought it by the office for us to enjoy over coffee (well, i had coffee). it was so delish! i didn't get a pic, but it was super yum- i enjoyed much of it!!!!!

we left and noon, not in search of much but wanting to just enjoy some girl time, we enjoyed looking at all our favorite stores and i even picked up a few fun things- my favorite of which might be the pink glittery le creuset spatula :) mom also treated me to a beautiful mirror to put over our dresser- i had been on the hunt for one. i've posted pictures at the bottom so scroll there to see!

after several hours of browsing, mom, ash, & i stopped by our place so i could show them our improvements and awaited the arrival of nathan, charlie & dad.

 the six of us then headed  to dinner at what i now believe i can say with some certainty is my favorite restaurant in atlanta- floataway cafe (check out my review on yelp here) and then stopped by cafe intermezzo for a little dessert before heading home (their bosco is thebomb.com, i mean, really!) nathan had stopped by floataway on his way to meet us and dropped off some beautiful stargazer lilies for our table - what a sweetie he is! :) amazingly enough, i got no pictures. sad day. however, here is one of the pretty flowers!

yesterday, i enjoyed a day off by the pool with mom & ash (& hannie for a little bit). it was so nice just to relax and not have to be anywhere! mom had picked up an incredible cake from one of her friends who bakes and sells pound cakes. can i just say yum?! chocolate pound cake + a cappuccino mousse whipped cream frosting= ahhh!!!!!

yeah, it was pretty good! so poolside, i enjoyed some great chats with mom & ash (including many about her exciting news) as well as some yummy serafinos salads.  ash gave me this incredible homemade wreath as a present, which will be going on our door as soon as i repair the 9 that i knocked off

beautiful!  after getting a whole lot of sun (and even a nap) it was time to go home to see my love who had gotten off work and picked up chinese take out & cupcakes for dinner!

nothing says love like general tsos chicken & fried rice :)

nathan got cupcakes from this new little bakery that just opened on monday- they were pretty good too!

he selected 2 chocolate, a salted caramel on chocolate cake, a caramel on yellow cake, a strawberry, and a white chocolate raspberry. yes please!

i chose to enjoy the salted caramel one first (nathan had a chocolate one)- it was great!

for my birthday, nathan is going to get me an iphone 5 when it comes out (we're thinking august?). i've never had a smart phone (in fact, i have a 2 year old samsung flip phone, but i'm not going to lie, most days i really love and appreciate its simplicity!)

all in all, great birthday. great folks. great times. 

i love my life.

here's some mirror pics, because, i know you were interested :)

pretty, huh?

thanks for all the birthday wishes!!

dan's birthday cupcakes!

so i've FINALLY gotten a chance to settle down and blog a bit! i had an EXCELLENT birthday (which i will write more on later) which has kept me busy the last couple of days. so now, let the blogging begin!

i had mentioned last week that i was making dan hamburger cupcakes for his birthday. friday night around 10:30, i finally got to work. first, i baked the yellow cupcakes. ashley and i took the wilton cake decorating class last summer, and in we learned that duncan hines boxed cake mixes are the best things to use for the most consistant results. i have a from-scratch recipe for yellow cake that i like even better, but because it was raining and i was short on time (and buttermilk) i whipped up these guys. per the counsel of wilton, i add in an extra egg and a box of instant vanilla pudding mix.

while the cupcakes were baking, i whipped up some of dan's favorite brownies. i made them in a big 11x17 jelly roll pan so that i could get the most "burgers" from one box (in the future, i would make a double batch of brownies and cook them in a smaller pan, because they kind of ended up looking like mcdonalds hamburgers because of their shrimpy size)

while the brownies were in the oven, i started mixing frosting. now, normally i would whip up some homemade buttercream, but i happened to have one last container of canned frosting, and since i was just using it as a "condiment", i gave it a good stir and started coloring. the yellow and green batches turned out great, but unfortunately, the red turned out looking a little pinkish maroon. i have never been able to make good red frosting. so, i just gave up and figured, who needs a lot of ketchup anyways.

so now, i just had to start assembling. i had let both the cupcakes and brownies cool, so i was ready to work! i used my bread knife to cut my cupcakes in half, right below the tops of them.

once that was done, i used a biscuit cutter with scalloped edges to cut out "hamburgers" from the brownies. to ensure that they didn't slide off, i put a little spot of icing on the bottom half of the cupcake, then layered the brownie burger, and topped it with some squirts of "mustard" "ketchup" and "lettuce."

and here were the results!

saddly, when i showed up at moms the next morning to take them to the little guy, i found him very sick. he had come home from youth camp with some sort of nasty stomach bug, so he didn't get to enjoy any. i have promised him a birthday re-do, and i will make these again for him then.

on a side note, the rest of the fam enjoyed them and there were none leftover!

so there you go- hamburger cupcakes. way cute. way easy. quite a hit. definitely will make them again!

my new baby!

ok, well, not quite a BABY. but, my new pride and joy :)

this weekend, my awesome mom treated me to a little bit early birthday present...a sewing machine! 

i have enjoyed sewing even since i was a little girl, and while in college, a few friends and i joined the local quilting guild and would spend our evenings sewing (by hand) quilts and odds and ends (side note- i never finished anything). 

since looking around on pinterest (and getting a late but INCREDIBLE wedding gift), i got inspired a few months ago and decided that i wanted to take up sewing again. so, what a perfect time to get a sewing machine!

mom, jamie, teague, and i packed up saturday morning and headed to the quaint local sewing shop, The Scarlet Thread (i highly recommend it if you are looking for a sewing store in mcdonough). after looking around for quite some time, i settled on some fabric for my first project (jamie had already helped gather the machine and things i would need- shes the best!).

for a machine, a baby lock came highly recommended. its funny, normally i'm a big researcher and i try to know everything i can about something, but this time, i just trusted jamie (so that was a pretty big deal for me!). i haven't used it yet, but just getting it out of the box was so exciting!

so here's to a source of infinite blog posts! i'll keep you posted once i get all the tape off and sew something :)

happy birthday dan!

at my berry graduation

today is my littlest brother dan's 12th birthday! that's so crazy! i'll never forget the night we got him (he was adopted in case you didn't know). i was heading out to go to relay for life with my dad, and my parents got a call and shortly had a newborn to look after.

if you don't know dan, you are really missing out. he is the funniest, wittiest little dude. he might be 12, but he acts about 65. from his perch on the couch (literally, a perch, a spot that he has worn down and sat in since he was like, 1), he is a champ at video games and loves to record and watch nba basketball games. he is so loving and thoughtful, and will always make you an ice water if you ask. his vocabulary is incredible (one time, him and nathan were watching star wars:clone wars and he said that the bad guy was impervious...what?!). he copies everything my dad does which is pretty darn cute.

at our wedding, he was a little too young to be a groomsman, so instead, he escorted my mom (along with critter) and read some scripture for us. he is our family's little theologian- its not uncommon for him to ask you for your view on israel or to tell you his thoughts on salvation.

dan has come to LOVE nathan. its pretty cute. no sooner have we pulled up in the driveway for a visit at the lake, and dan is waiting by nathan's door with a basketball in hand asking him to play. and he's pretty good.

dan and nathan chatting it up before the wedding

dan is also quite the ladies man. i'll never forget it- on my birthday a few years back, we were sitting at lunch and he tapped me on the shoulder and said "excuse me, but um, do you have a map?" i kind of laughed and said no why? he then went on to say, "because i'm lost in your eyes." throughout college, he would randomly call me (he memorized my cell) and he would leave me long messages, asking when i would come home and what i was doing. one day, he called me and said "hey love muffin" and ever since, we have called each other "love muffin"

one of our favorite treats- at the crepe cart in breckenridge, awaiting our scrumdidilyuptious nutella crepes

needless to say, he's quite a hoot! so heres to a happy happy 12th birthday little guy! we will be celebrating with him on sunday, and for the occasion i'm making him a surprise special treat (of course there will be a blog about it!) as far as a gift gos, no joke, when i asked him what he wanted from us for his birthday, he said that since he knew we were poor and trying to save our money to buy a house, he just wanted nathan to take him to the LA Fitness to play a game of pick up basketball, and then to go to the world of coke museum and then to dinner at Flip Burger Boutique (because thats cheap). so there will of course be a blog about that as well!

until then, happy birthday dan!

on the lift in colorado

and here's a sneak peek at what i'll be making tonight!

from bakerella's website