Happy 50th Birthday Mom!!!

Ok, how gorgeous is my mom?! Seriously. And at 50 she still looks amazing. Let's just say I hope I've inherited her genes. Mom, sorry I didn't get you a card. I hope this makes up for it. I remembered today that on your birthday last year we went to class together. I'm so glad I got to go to school with you before I graduated. Don't worry, you're a cool mom so I wasn't in the least embarrassed (especially since you helped me out with homework). And look at us now all graduated and stuff! I'm so proud of us. I love the pic of us at Morning Glory having lunch before class. Such fond memories. I love you!

Desk Love

{top: Urban Outfitters; long sleeved shirt: Target; skirt: Target; tights: Target; shoes: Kelsie Dagger}

I hate Mondays. But one thing that sure perks up a Monday morning is finding desk love greeting me when I come in. Jessica is always so sweet to leave me little notes and gifts on various occasions and this Monday I just so happened to find a beautiful Papaya calender awaiting me on my desk. If you aren't familiar with Papaya, go to their website immediately. I am in love with their uniquely beautiful artwork adoring their greeting cards, journals, posters, etc. You will fall in love. I toured their company once and it was just as beautiful as the artwork they create. Every room was a different masterpiece. Someday I'd love to work at an aesthetically pleasing and creative place like that. I also found a little note taped to my computer from my friend David who visited from LA this weekend for my mom's birthday party. Even though the note was dorky and short, I loved getting it. Little things like these help get me through the workdays that I barely mustered myself out of bed for. They make me realize that if we stop and make a point to show someone we stopped by or were thinking about them we just might perk up their day too. Just thought I'd share that with you before I drift off into slumberland...

A Magical Night

Words cannot fully describe how wonderful my mom's 50th birthday bash was last night, but let me just say that it was absolutely magical. Of course my mom was incredibly touched and brought to tears several times. I loved seeing her feel so loved and special. Here are a few other things I loved about the night:

1.) Spending time with old friends and new. I loved having a lot of my favorite people all in one place enjoying the night together.

2.) Presenting the gift to my mom (second photo) that the 5 of us kids went in on together. We had a ring custom designed with each of our birth stones in age order. Needless to say she was choked up and loved it.

3.) Eating delicious catered food and admiring the amazing cupcake display featuring 4 different kinds of gourmet cupcakes (I tried to stay away from the cake part but ate a lot of the frosting off with my sister. YUM!) And of course drinking some delicious girly fruity pink wine. Just the way I like it.

4.) Taking in all the hilarious stories in the roast to my mom. My mom rarely tells stories from her youth, mostly because her memory isn't the greatest so I especially loved hearing hilarious stories from her crazy high school days from her amazing best friend from high school. And of course there were a couple incredibly touching and sweet speeches, one of which brought me to tears.

5.) Dancing the night away! I can't believe I'm listing this as one of my favorite parts about the night but now I can officially say that I am falling in love with dancing! It has to be with the right people (no creepy guys, please) and the right music and last night I had both. I danced so much my knees hurt and my shoes and earrings had to come off. Being a former strict non-dancer at parties due to feeling too awkward and self conscious I was quite proud of myself.

6.) Wearing my beautiful H&M dress I bought specially for the occasion. I cannot number the many times I was complimented on it but it reaffirmed how amazing it was. I felt like a fairy princess and it was absolutely perfect for dancing. Any excuse to dress up in a dress like that I'll take!

The party was just part of the wonderful weekend we devoted to my mom's birthday. Now that people have left and things are settled down, I have a feeling similar to the day after Christmas. All the anticipation is over and back to reality I go. Thankfully, I am left reminded of how wonderful great friendships and family truly are. Well, I am off to drowning my post-party blues in watching movies with Ruby and my baby sis Hayley.

Photo credit: Grace Aspinwall. I hope it's okay I stole your beautiful pics Grace!

The Big Countdown

Hopefully today will be my last sick day. I took one more day of work but thankfully I feel much better than yesterday. My nose is going to be raw from blowing it every 5 minutes. I did do a few productive things today including creating this thumbprint tree modeled after the ones sold on Etsy. My mom is having a big 50th birthday bash this weekend that my dad has been planning and working on for ages but now that it's only a matter of days away, the whole household is in preparation for this big full weekend event. I was assigned (among other things) to create the guestbook for the big party on Saturday night. After seeing one at a friend's wedding, I thought it would be fun to take a stab at creating my own, even if it turns out slightly creepy and Tim Burton-esque as I feel mine did. I wish it were a bit more romantic and less prickly looking but oh well. It will have to do. Click the Etsy link above to see what it's supposed to look like with all the thumbprints. I'm getting really excited for all the festivities starting Friday after the out of town guests have arrived. Be expecting pictures afterwards! Hope you all had a lovely Tuesday!

Girl with the Blue Bow Interview!

Christianna from The Girl with the Blue Bow was sweet enough to interview me for her weekly "Any Friend of Mine" post! Be sure to check it out here! Thanks Christianna for featuring me on your ever-entertaining blog!

Antiquing with Kell-belle

This is just the kind of thing I love to do when I hang out with the lovely Kelly (or Kell-belle as I have affectionately deemed her). Thankfully I was feeling well enough to go out today after being sick for most of the weekend and was happy to get out of the house for a bit. Kelly loves antique shopping and has been wanting to bring me to our antique mall for ages so I was so happy to finally explore all the amazing treasures in this vast store with her. My favorite finds were all the amazing jewelry, specifically the clip on earrings. I have sensitive earlobes and my left piercing is severely stretched so I've resorted to only wearing clip ons, which are usually very hard to find and expensive. That is why I instantly gravitate to the jewelry in most antique and vintage stores because clip ons are usually in abundance there and let me tell you, they were practically oozing out of the walls in this place! I was like a kid in a candy store! But I ended up being good and only bought one pair, which took a lot of self control. I have every intention of returning when I have a bit more change in my pocket and more time to kill because I knew we were just skimming the surface of that place.

I hope you all had a lovely weekend! Look for me on The Girl with the Blue Bow tomorrow! The lovely Christianna interviewed me about the story behind La Belle Vie so be sure to check it out!