Vegas, Baby!

Ever since my baby sister turned 20 we have been talking about going to Vegas.  We initially planned to go for her 21st birthday, but that came and went, as did 22, but 23 was the year!  Thanks to my glorious collection of hotel points, we were able to stay at the Hilton Las Vegas and spend 2 nights and 3 days in the glorious, Las Vegas, Nevada!

Below are a random assortment of pictures.  As you can probably tell, Biz and I have a tendency to take pictures in front of statutes posing the same position.  It was a great trip, and I can't wait to go back again some day!

Lisa's first win!

Only the Upton girls go to Vegas to play in an arcade!

D loves crazy motorcycles so we decided to take a picture for him!

We went to David Copperfield our first night there.  It was AMAZING.  The only thing that could have made it better was if he had picked one of us to be in the tricks.  Seriously, magic is awesome - I have no idea how he did all the stuff he did.

This one is a little fuzzy, but it says: "Cowgirls Welcome" - GO POKES!

Afternoon cocktails!

Well, that's all I've got - I'm off the rest of the week, getting new windows installed tomorrow and having a "break-in the house" party on Saturday.  I hope you all have a wonderful 4th of July!

Baby Shower!

A couple of months ago I had the privilege of hosting a baby shower for one of my very best friends, Mackenzie!  The party was at the very end of my busy season, which made it even more fun to plan - as I worked on it over the weekends for the two months before to make sure everything was special for her big day.  Below are some pictures and info about the shower.  She had a wonderfully sweet baby boy - Noah - who has a Noah's Ark themed nursery so I stuck with an animal themed shower (with blues and greens as well.) I think it turned out pretty well...

A view of the entire room from the far corner - it was a tight fit, but I really wanted to do a sit down meal (since the mommy-to-be requested no games, I thought a sit down meal would be fun.)  I used four small fold up tables and bought four matching table clothes from BB&B.

This is a close up of one of the tables - I used silver charges left over from my wedding. Half the tables had my wedding china and the other half had our every day white dishes paired with flower bowls inherited from my grandmother.  We also used my grandmother's silver and our "good" stainless from our wedding.

Close up of the center pieces. They are mason jars that I had picked up at an estate sale, full of key limes (later used to make a yummy key lime pie).  There is a mixture of fresh flowers and greenery and paper flowers made using my Slice.

Another center piece, and a better picture of the flower bowls.

I decorated the mantle with a framed copy of the invitation, green and blue candles, smaller flower arrangements and Beanie Babies!  (Yes, we still have all of our Beanie Babies - thinking we'd make millions some day! Maybe we're not making tons of money but I think they sure look cute as a baby shower accent!)

I don't have a great picture of the invitations but they were very cute, and made by Inviting Inventorri.

More mantle views...

This was my first diaper cake - the words and lettering were done with my Slice, and then just accented with wide ribbon.

Here is a super easy decoration - just take rope (I used a green color from the ribbon section of my craft store) and clothes pins.  I bought a couple packs of onesies, some wash clothes, socks and rattles in the same colors as the rest of the decor.)

I didn't get a great picture of the table, but we had tons of food.  I didn't have a great table cloth, so I just used a white one, with an antique small green appliqued table cover, from my grandmother, in the center.  The serving pieces are a mixture of my stuff and my mom's.  We served chicken salad sandwiches, veggie cream cheese bagels, individual sized quiche (I can't remember the flavors), a berry soup, shrimp cocktail and cupcakes for dessert.  We also had water and tea and a sparkling lemonade "toast" to Mommy and baby.

I made these labels for the food using the slice, tooth picks, and old corks.  David and my Dad sanded the bottom of the corks so they would sit flat, then I just stuck the toothpick in them (you can see a better pic above).  Then I just wrote the food name, and glued them together, adding a ribbon to make them more festive).

Here is Mommy opening her one of her presents!

Sorry this isn't a better picture - we used the timer setting on top of a car - since we wanted every to be in the picture.

I had so much fun hosting this shower - hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Birthday Fun

Back in February, I hit the big 2-5 amidst a crazy busy season at work.  Fortunately, my birthday fell on a Sunday that was after a big deadline push, and so I was able to take the day off.  We had a quiet Sunday including lunch at Cool Greens in OKC - one of my faves and a homemade dinner cooked by my wonderful Dad (with cupcakes to take to work the next day)!  I got some WONDERFUL birthday presents as well.

David gave me this gorgeous purse:

This is actually the third birthday since we've been married that he has given me a handbag - so I think we officially have a tradition going.



About two weeks before my birthday, my firm sent out an email saying we were finally exiting the dark ages and would be allowed to use iPhones with our work email.  My brother-in-law was interning with the firm this past spring, and knew how much I wanted the phone, and told his parents who gave it to me for my birthday:

My sister got me these great Vera Bradley placemats, which are on our dining room table right now:

My last present was from my parents.  About a year ago, David and I purchased the following chair from an estate sale for $20: 

Mom and I picked out fabric, each read two books about re-upholstery and decided to go for it.  One day, we put a tarp on the floor in her living room and started taking the chair apart per our books.  We quickly realized what a mess we were getting into.  Our books described how to upholster a chair that was covered in foam.  Our chair was not.  It was instead filled with treasures such as horse hair, straw, and goodness knows what else.  Keep in mind, we are in the middle of my mom's living room, so we quickly started putting all the insides into trash bags.  Before we knew it we had a totally bare chair (save for springs - many of which were broken) and the frame.  Well the chair sat just like that for about six months until my parents took it to a fantastic upholstery shop in OKC called Truman's and had them cover it in the fabrics I had selected. 

I am beyond happy with how it turned out.  In fact it was the inspiration for our family room in the new house.  Look for a post with updates on the family room soon!

So while busy season birthday's are not always the best, mine turned out pretty dang good if you ask me!

New House

It has been forever since I blogged (well not forever, December 23 to be specific). So much has happened in the last 6 months - and I'll do my best to start to catch you all up, but I thought I'd start with the biggest news - WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!

David and I spent the first 2.5 years of our marriage living in David's parents' first house. It had been rental property for 25 years, and when we got engaged, we fixed it up and moved in. We loved our first house, and while it was hard to move away from the first place we called home together, it was definitely time to give up the joys of living at "Somerset."  These joys included one itty bitty bathroom, a tiny kitchen, no garage, doors that some times didn't open properly, a lack of central heat and air and one year, snow in the bedroom!

We have been going to open houses and thinking about things we would like in our "some day" house for quite a while, and after busy season, we decided to start looking seriously. After one (very long) day with a real estate agent, we were a little let down - we thought that we would know the perfect house when we saw it, but nothing jumped out. We went home and thought about all the houses, and decided to revisit just one (the first one we saw.) After revisiting it later that week, we were in love. We made an offer the next day and the closed about a month later.

We have already made quite a few changes, but I thought I would start by showing you the original house, as purchased.

Formal Living Room

Dining Room

 

Kitchen

Family Room

Master Bedroom

Master Closet

Master Bath

Office
 

Guest Room

Guest Bath

Back Yard

I pulled all the pictures off a real estate website, so a few rooms were missing, but there is a second guest room upstairs, a powder room downstairs, a laundry room, and a cool area under the stairs.

We have been hard at work, making it our own - so look for more posts to come on all of our changes, craft projects, etc.

I am off to San Antonio for work in the morning - I hope you all have a great week!