Oh, Happy Day!!

Indeed, it is :)

Mark flip-flopped his normal schedule, and hung out with me and got suit-fitted this morning, and went into his internship this afternoon. A nice change from the norm :)

Why this day is so happy:

Exhibit A: laying in my uber-amazing-comfy bed forever this morning :)

Exhibit B: leftover Thai food for lunch!! This is Chicken Panang, also known as heaven:

Exhibit C: My CSA box!!!!!!

I do think we might be upgrading to the bigger box next month, but we'll make do with this for now I guess..... :) This makes me so, so, so, so happy for so many reasons. I am more thankful for this food than other food - I guess I shouldn't be, but I just feel a stronger connection. I've read about the farmers that grew this food. I trust the company. I believe in their methods. This food is organic, and it's local, and beautiful. This will become our food for this week: bruschetta for lunch tomorrow, eggplant parmesan (maybe a small eggplant parm) for Thursday's dinner with a green salad, and peaches for our snacks. Oh, how happy this box makes me!!

And finally, Exhibit D: Wonderful shopping trip to Jo-Anne Fabric and Crafts!

I got quite the spread of scrapbooking supplies, and Lord knows I sorely needed them (and oh, they are pretty! Paper! Prismacolors! Metallic gold pen! Oh my!), but this little gem was my favorite buy of today :) I desperately want a house to decorate. It's hard to decorate for holidays and such 1) when you've never really done it and don't really know how, and 2) when your place of residence is not permanent. But I've decided to try and turn over a new leaf this year, and this is a great place to start! (And it looks so pretty on my red door!) Come Christmas, I hope to have garland running along our little banister between the dining room and living room, but this is a lovely start for fall. Once October comes, I'll add a few real pumpkins, and our entrance will be lovely :)

I think I'm gonna go break into some of that new scrapbooking stuff now ... hope everyone has an equally lovely day as I did!!

Lots of little things

I have lots of little random things to talk about this morning, so I feel that a list is in order..

1) I finally joined the Twitter bandwagon, due to encouragement from my Nashville friends. I'm not sure how I feel about all of this - I have a facebook, a blog, and now a Twitter. What does this say about me as a person?

2) Mark and I had a really awesome date night last night. We went to Surin 280 to eat - the Surin restaurants are these amazing Thai restaurants in Birmingham. Probably my favorite places to eat in the city. (And, coincidentally, all owned by the uncle of one of my college suitemates...) I ate some fantastic sushi, and had some yummy yummy curry that I get to reprise for lunch again today! Then we went to Target and walked around wishing for things we shouldn't buy. And then we came home and watched The Informant, which was a really good movie. I love Netflix. And my husband :)

3) Today I get my first CSA box, and I am so excited!! This month, we're doing the smallest share that Grow Alabama has, but I anticipate needing more veggies than we're going to get, so we might have to upgrade to the middle share. If we do that - lots of veggies!! We'll see. It's going to be quite the culinary adventure, but I am so, so excited about it :)

4) I'm trying again with the read through the Bible plan - but this time, Elissa and I are doing it together, and I'm hoping that it will last. It'll help to have an accountability partner. Pray for me in this endeavor...

5) Mark's suit came in! So we're going to Jos. A Bank to get him fitted this afternoon - can't wait to see my sweetie looking all grown-up and professional. :)

That's all for now ... but I may be back this afternoon with pictures of our lovely veggies!

Life on the Farm

We're at home in Birmingham again - we got back on Wednesday night. Yesterday I basically did nothing - just a quick run to the grocery store.

First of all ... we just found out that Mark's 15-year-old brother, Thomas, has mono. He's been sick for like 2 weeks, and they've gone through a frustrating amount of possible diagnoses - mastoiditis, viral meningitis, Rocky Mtn. Spotted Fever (along with all those other awful tick-related coinfections...) We're thankful that he has a diagnosis, and that it isn't as serious as any of those other diagnoses, but it will unfortunately knock him off his feet for at least a month, probably more. This is the first year that he's talked about getting serious about school too - I'm praying he doesn't get behind. Pray for him, will you guys? He's miserable, he sounds awful, he's lost 9 pounds (and he's not got a whole lot more to lose ... in his words, "I worked HARD for those 9 pounds!"), he won't eat, and he's just generally pitiful. Pray that he gets better as fast as possible. And pray for Mark's parents too, that they can be empathetic and handle things well and help him with school while he's at home.

Anyway, while we were in Chattanooga, I did get pictures developed from my time at Hannah's farm. And cause you're all so great, I'll share them with you! (All shot on film.)

looking out over the Gordon farm (or part of it...)

They had 2 gorgeous zinnia gardens - the butterflies absolutely loved those flowers.

According to my sister, this is an Eastern swallowtail. (not an African swallowtail like I called it, in error, before.)

Zinnias! I went home and asked Mark if we could plant some RIGHT NOW. They also look really beautiful in a vase - Hannah let me cut some and take them home for my kitchen table. We had fresh flowers for 4 days!

The lone eggplant. They weren't doing so well this summer.

Concord grapes. They tasted WONDERFUL. And because Hannah's parents farm organically, you can literally pick everything right off the plant and eat it. No pesticides to worry about - only a little dirt sometimes :)

The best raspberries I've ever eaten. They're called Caroline raspberries, and they're an heirloom variety, and they are so, so sweet. And not too many seeds, either!

Apples in Mr. Gordon's orchard

I really love this shot of the barn. My photog skills are getting better!

Swing

Some of the animals - sheep and chickens. The cows were already out in the field - their animals are all quite friendly :)

The friendly-looking tree with a face :)

This is my favorite picture of the bunch - I call it "These boots are made for workin'" I'm so witty, har har :)

Back inside, we wash the fruits of the Gordons' labor. These are Hannah's mom's squash tomatoes.

Beets, beans, and onions - I helped pick all of these!

Squash and some more of Hannah's mom's tomatoes

Beautiful heirloom tomatoes (which I also helped pick) - some of them are sitting in my freezer right now, waiting to be put into tomato sauce and soup!

The view from the kitchen window.

Visiting that farm and seeing all those pretty veggies and happy animals made me so, so delighted :) Hopefully I can have a vegetable garden one day - maybe not quite of those epic proportions, and I'm not sure I want cows, but it was so fun to visit!

P.S. Remember to keep poor Thomas in your prayers! He's pretty pitiful at the moment.

A sad and a happy

I'm feeling blank this afternoon. Not in a bad way... I'm just not sure what to write. My life has been so boring lately ... well, not to me, but probably boring to everyone else. I love my routine. I love spending so much time in the kitchen. I love playing housewife during the week. I've even *gasp* taken great satisfaction in washing the dishes lately.

But there's not that much to blog about, right now. I'm usually one of those people who wants to DO something all the time. This occasionally poses a problem with Mark, because he says that you can't do something ALL time time. I disagree. Usually, I go-go-go. I guess lately, what I've been DOING is cooking :) It works out nicely for both of us.

I do have one thing that I'm pretty excited about (and not, at the same time), which is coming up pretty soon. Mark will be chaperoning an overseas mission trip with his brother's youth group next week. That's right, I said chaperoning. My husband, in charge of teenagers. What a scary thing to think about!! (J/k, baby, if you're reading this!)

That's the part I'm not super excited about, because I can't go. This will be the longest we've been apart since before we got married, and since it's overseas, we'll have very little contact with each other. Boo hiss. How very lonely, and not fun.

Enter: my sister! She's coming to stay with me most of the time that Mark is gone, and I am SO excited about it! We've made grand plans (per usual) that involve lots and lots and lots of cooking delicious foods, going fun places, and generally prancing around and having a merry old time. I can't wait to see her again ... I just wish Mark wasn't going to be gone :(

(P.S. A shameless plug for my sister - she's just posted a recipe for Paula Deen's cheesecake bars ... it looks delightful, plus there's the added bonus of seeing the widely-feared vanilla monster!)

Hope you guys had a great Wednesday!

My Personal Food Culture

I am so thankful that I have a mom who likes to cook. I was lucky, growing up, to be one of the few kids that I knew who sat down and ate with their family. We ate breakfast together every morning at the kitchen table, and we ate dinner together every night. I credit my mother for a lot of things, but specific to this, eating dinner helped keep me sane. It kept me healthy. It helped me develop a good relationship with food. That table was where we talked about our days, where we talked through our problems and issues, where I associate with comfort. To this day, when I'm staying with my parents (holidays, visiting, whatever), there's just something about having a cup of coffee made for you and set in front of you with all the love a mother can give. That kitchen feels more like home to me than does any other place in my parents' house.

My sister, still in high school, baking thumbprint cookies in my parents' kitchen

My mom, making fried green tomatoes for the Fourth of July the year Mark and I got married

I didn't really learn how to cook there. I was really spoiled when I was younger, so I didn't really learn how to cook/clean/do my own laundry very well until I went off to college. That's where I started, with my mom's recipes and a willing spirit. And then, after I got married, it was something I wanted to be really good at. So I tried hard to learn to cook both the things my mom made and new things of my own, and gradually developed my own tastes and ideas and beliefs about real things and fresh things and food that makes me happy.

On fall break one year, in Hannah's family cabin, making Chicken Noodle Soup group-style

Cooking with one of my roommates in our apartment my senior year of college

Now, I have the best memories in kitchens. Because while being cooked for is fantastic, cooking with someone you love is even better. Making pizzas on Christmas eve with our whole family, baking cookies and Oreo truffles with my mom. Making her scrambled eggs with greens in them. Cooking extravagant meals and trying new things with Elissa. Experimenting with Kelly. Exchanging recipes with everyone.

Mark and Matthew doing the dishes after Elissa and I made dinner

M

My mom, dancing and singing with our Christmas dinner this past year.

Pizza on Christamas eve

Tab, Elissa's roommate, with the blueberry brownies we made

Kelly slicing peppers in my parents' kitchen

I had an interesting conversation with a co-worker the other day. I talk about food and cooking a lot at work, because it's something I really, really love and care about. I made muffins for everybody the other morning, and she said something along the lines of "Wow, you really do like to cook." Which started this conversation. She, apparently, doesn't. She says she doesn't know how to cook, doesn't cook very well.

In Nashville: good food, good wine, good friends

 Pizza fixin's on Christmas eve

My mom making cornbread ... and having difficulties

And I always wonder... what on earth do people like that eat? How can you feed yourself if you can't cook? Does your family sit down for dinner together? Do you eat fast food all the time? It always baffles me when people say "Oh, I don't cook." I'm thankful that I really don't have any concept of that "I don't cook" statement, but what does it mean for their families and their children?

So I'm posing the question to all of you. Do you cook? If so, what do you cook? Do you sit down and eat as a family (or, if you're single, did you when you were little?) And if you don't cook ... what do you eat??

New Layout

After slaving all afternoon ... my food blog finally has a new layout!! (What a wonderful waste of time ... and, I can say that I accomplished something!)

After all my hours of work ... I think you all should go take a gander :) I love the way it's turned out ... very simple.

Basil and Buttercream: A Love Affair with Food

WIN!

Well my friends, it's been an excellent and highly successful morning!

I woke up in plenty of time to make breakfast - I made Orange Bran Flax Muffins, possibly the healthiest muffins ever (that still taste good, at least.) If you want the recipe, it's posted at Basil and Buttercream. So Mark and I ate breakfast, talked through our plans for the day, and I sent him off to work with his lunch packed. (Wife win!)
Then, I cleaned the kitchen (of course, while rockin' out to my favorite playlists on my iPod...)
And then I did my morning workout. (Well ... I call it my morning workout. It's the second workout I've done in a LONG, LONG time.)
It went well. I think, for now, I've found a solution that works for me. Basically, I started with about 15 minutes of calisthenics to get me nice and warmed up. Then I ran, then walked, then dragged myself up and down the stairs for the entirety of Maroon 5's song "Harder to Breathe." (SO appropriate, right?)
And THEN ... I had my own personal dance party. For like 20 minutes! So exciting! I'm positive that I looked like a TOTAL goofball, cause let's be honest, I'm a really, really white girl, and I can swing dance and waltz with the best of them, and I've got rhythm (It seriously just took me about 6 tries to spell that word right) ... but I don't have much there to shake. So it was a lot of jumpy/bouncy/kicky stuff. But it was fun, and it's all my favorite up-beat music, and my heart rate was up for a good 20-25 minutes, so that's all that matters, right?

But still. I wouldn't want to have a PUBLIC dance party. I might invite my sister to join when she visits. But that's about it. Because (and I'm about to embarrass myself here), it'd be a lot of this (which was taken AFTER the dance party, not during):

And really, who wants to see that? (Besides all of you in BlogLand, of course.)

So anyway, all that to say I had a really great morning. I was pretty tired after my workout/dance party, but I didn't feel like I was going to die like I did yesterday.

So hopefully I can be at least semi-productive this afternoon, and then tonight is Girls' Night! So excited ... I haven't had a good girls' night in a while.

(EVERY night will be Girls' Night when Kelly comes to visit again though! Can't wait!)

Hope all of you have a fantastic Thursday! It's almost the weekend!

This Just In:

My darling sister has started a blog! You should follow her, because she's pretty awesome.

Kelly S.

(Also! I have new followers ... this makes me so happy! Hello to everybody!)

(And! For those interested in knowing... I did indeed drag Mark to the frozen yogurt place on Friday. I actually got frozen custard, which has to be terrible for you but is so, so rich and wonderful. I topped it with strawberries and granola. Yum!)

Tired, but good

I'm exhausted tonight.

I miss Elissa ... it's been forever since I saw her.

I'm sad that I couldn't see either my dad OR Mark's dad on Father's Day.

But...

We had bruschetta for dinner. We channeled Julie, from the movie Julie & Julia. You know that scene, where she cooks bruschetta in the beginning of the movie, and her husband is totally stuffing his face? That was us. It was FABULOUS.

On that note ... check out my food blog later! I kind of tweaked the look of it, so it looks a bit better (I think), and I'll have a new (actual) food post up soon. Not bruschetta, but almost as good :)

Hope everybody had a great weekend!

Friday update

It's been a nice, productive-but-lazy couple of days in the Skinner household. I spent pretty much all day yesterday cooking and cleaning the kitchen/dining room, and also found time to get some scrapbooking done.

The food blog will be a go hopefully in the next week or so. Andy (Mark's best friend) is showing me some kind of something on Wordpress where you can get your own domain name .... or something. April = not tech-savvy. But apparently it'll let me have a bit more control over what my blog looks like and what it can do, and Andy's going to help me with all that. Look for the link in my sidebar sometime next week!

Also, new discovery:
Pandora Radio has become my new best friend. I've been rockin' out to the Glee Cast station while cooking/washing dishes all week, and really, it's the only way to do either. Don't Stop Believin' makes soapy water and prune-y hands about 50 times better. Never tried it? You totally should.

Mark should be home soon, and we will eat the DELICIOUSNESS that is Pasta with Sundried Tomatoes (from none other than the Barefoot Contessa, of course - I love me some Ina Garten...) To me, summer is tomatoes and basil.

Maybe I can convince Mark to come with me to the new frozen yogurt place that has opened up close to our house. We've never been there before, and I have high hopes for it.

Hope everybody has a FANTASTIC weekend!

Busy busy...

An update is coming soon, I promise, along with lots of fun and pretty pictures of this past week. However, I'm in the middle of my work-weekend, and I'm just too tired to do it now.

BUT.

I have to brag on my husband a bit.

When I came home from work tonight, he had 2 quiches hot and ready to eat for dinner. (Granted, I left him a detailed recipe, but still ... better than most guys I know!)

He's pretty awesome. And I'm pretty lucky.

Now, time for bed! Another early morning tomorrow.

Memorial Day Weekend

This was how my weekend went:

Saturday: work

Sunday: work

Monday: sleep in. do nothing. stay online all day. cook dinner - late. BBQ chicken, corn on the cob, glazed carrots, and strawberry shortcake for dessert. Worth the wait.

Back to work again today.

I'm tired tonight. I have no good stories. I have no cute pictures. In fact, we made ZERO pictures on Memorial Day (probably because we did nothing.)

What I AM actually excited about: my sister is coming to visit next week! For 5 whole days! We're going to celebrate her birthday all week!

And, while she's here, our third anniversary will happen too :) It coincidentally falls on the same day that I was planning to have her birthday dinner, so it will just be a celebration of everything. We've already done our big anniversary stuff - that was the cruise. So now we get to share our happy day with my sweet sister :) It will be an excellent week. I cannot wait!

Update: this week

It's been a good week. Biggest accomplishment? Not eating out. AT ALL. It's like a record for us. Now let's see if I can make it through this weekend at work - I always face intense pressure on Sundays to eat out with the rest of the girls :) Most of the time I give in. Hopefully I can be strong this week...

We're trying really hard to not spend money - it's been a little tight recently, because of our vacation and me not feeling well right afterwards and having to leave work early a couple Sundays ago. I love my Baylor schedule, but the only part that really sucks is no paid time off, including sick time. So ... because of all that, we're trying to pinch pennies.

I've cooked some yummy meals this week, including a cobb salad, a new curry dish I tried (and I've figured out some things to try next time to make it even better!), and tonight we had my mom's standard, spaghetti :) It's her own recipe, and not much makes me happier than that.

Otherwise, I've gotten somewhat caught up with the massive amounts of scrapbooking I have to do, as well as the massive amounts of laundry that are currently littering my bedroom floor. I talked to my mom for a good while on the phone today and found out all the happenings at their house lately. I'm planning a fun week when my sister comes to visit (10 days!) And I've gotten to relax and goof off and spend some quality time with the hubby.

I think I'll take that. And I just realized - I have an extra day of work on Tuesday :) Which means more money in the bank ... and that's definitely a good thing!

I can't believe it's already Wednesday...

Happy Wednesday to everybody! I don't know about you guys, but this week has flown by already - probably because I worked extra on Monday.

Mark and I have been trying a new exercise adventure - it's not very adventurous, really, but hopefully we'll actually continue to do this one. We've started walking every morning. (Well, every morning that I don't have to work...) I figure we do about 2-2.5 miles each time, so it's a decent amount of walking... I'd rather do a lot farther, but Mark doesn't seem to want to. Hopefully tomorrow we can do a much more strenuous trail at Oak Mtn.

After we got back from our walk this morning, I headed straight into the kitchen to try my hand at quiche for brunch/lunch today... We'll see how it goes. I am quite ashamed to admit that I did not try to make my own crust (the lack of food processor is a definite hindrance to making pie crust), but instead used store-bought refrigerated crust, which cracked and did not quite fill up my 9.5-inch pie pans. (WHY do they make pie pans 9.5 inches when pie crust recipes and store-bought crust CLEARLY say it's meant for a 9-inch pan?? I will never understand this.) So some of the quiche mixture seeped over the top of the crust, and it won't be very pretty. I'm hoping that it will taste good, at least... I guess we'll find out in about 40 minutes.

Now, I'm off to hit the shower while the quiches bake and maybe start a load of laundry (or finish doing the dishes) before it's time to eat.

Hope everybody has a lovely hump day!

I'm back..

... but still no pictures :( I'm picking up a new drive tomorrow. I give up - mine is lost forever. (But where on EARTH could it have gone???)

I feel like a housewife from the 50's tonight.

I'm wearing a pretty sundress, dinner for tomorrow night is marinating in the fridge, and those dishes are done, and I'm getting ready to start on tonight's dinner while I wait for Mark to get home. Oh, and Frank Sinatra is playing in my living room.

A short recap of the last two weeks, sans pictures:

Destin was fun. I got sunburned. We stayed on the beach the large majority of the time, and it was beautiful. I read the entire second Harry Potter book in one day. (That was when I got so sunburned.) Good catching up times with Kristine, too - we talked and talked and talked. (Not much else to do on a 5+ hour car drive...)

I came back on Thursday, spent time with Mark on Friday, had an excellent Easter weekend at work, and then headed out for Nashville on Monday.

My week in Nashville was full, and wonderful. Monday night, we cooked, using Elissa's new Wine Lover's Cookbook (which I subsequently bought as well). Dave came over for dinner, and the three of us and Tab, Lissa's roommate, ate with us. Tuesday was the cookout. Wednesday we went to a disappointing knock-off Bodies exhibit, and then cooked again. Thursday we ate lunch with Mel, and went to Trivia that night. And I left at about 6 AM on Friday morning.

Worked this weekend. It was good.

And tomorrow, we're reinstating the weekly dinners that we used to do with Andy and Suzie. We're using the cookbook I mentioned above, because we're all interested in trying and (hopefully) liking new wines, so it should be fun. We're starting with the Indian chicken with nectarine chutney that we ate at Lissa's house on Monday night, paired with a Gewurztraminer (which I hadn't even ever heard of before...). It was delicious. I hope mine turns out as good...

Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to do a brief picture recap, and tell you about our backyard and its progress!

Hope everybody has a great Monday night :)

I'm such an awful blogger!!

I have been the WORST blogger this past week. So sorry!

I've lost my SD card/USB adapter thingy, so no pictures yet - if I can't find it when I get home from Nashville, I'm just going to suck it up and buy a new one.

I'm in Nashville now, and it is so much fun! I love Elissa, and her friends are wonderful, and last night was amazing :) We made dinner, and ate with her roommate and a friend, and then we played board games. Dinner was Indian Chicken with Nectarine Chutney, which came out of a wine lover's cookbook. It was paired with a gewurtzminer wine (which I'd never even HEARD of), and I swear, it was the best wine/food combo I've ever had. I'm still learning to like wine. I don't like a lot of wines. But this, oh my lord, this was AMAZING. Yum. Yum. Yum.

Good food and good friends make me happy :)

Today we're brunching, and then going for a walk/hike in an awesome park, and then going to a cookout tonight. Yay for friends! (I wish I could plant Nashville right next to Birmingham so I could see everybody all at once...)

Birthday Recap

Today is Elissa's last day here with me :( So sad.

(We've already planned a Nashville trip for me and a visit to Chattanooga for both of us, though... We like to plot. We're like Lucy and Ethel. Or Lucy and Lucy, as Lissa's boyfriend likes to say...)

Anywho...

My birthday (days) in pictures!!


March 23rd: I turned 25!

We went to lunch with Andy and Suzie at Surin West - SO yummy! Here's me and Mark outside the restaurant after lunch


Mark had to go back to the library and do some reading/work, and we all headed home to eat cake. Yummy! It was a strawberry cake with cream cheese icing. (I changed shirts, because it was hot.)

Looking cheesy...


We finally got patio chairs! Now we can eat outside!


Andy and Suzie


Me and my BFF :)


Then Lissa and I headed into downtown Homewood to wander and look around. She might kill me for posting this picture, but I don't care :)


One of the places we went was Penzy's - an AMAZING spice store. If you have one in your area, you should totally check it out. I got some curry powder, some spice du provence, and some AMAZING cocoa powder. Like, God might serve it in heaven. Or make things with it. Or something. Next on my list to get there: extracts! Double strength vanilla (I DIE), almond, orange, lemon, oh my yummy goodness...



And then, that night (curses to me for not making pictures - do you guys ever do that? Not make pictures, because you're too busy actually DOING whatever you're doing to get your camera, then totally, totally regret it later?)... Matthew (Lissa's boyfriend) came over and we ate dinner together. Lissa and I made yummy pasta - we dubbed it April's Birthday Pasta, per Matthew's request for a name. It was angel hair pasta, asparagus, mushrooms, grilled chicken, and sundried tomatoes in a white wine cream sauce (complete with garlic and my new spice du provence!)

We ate outside. By candlelight. On my gorgeous patio table. With Frank Sinatra playing in the background. It seemed like something out of a movie. It was perfect.

WHY DID I NOT TAKE PICTURES OF THIS????

Anyway, nothing I can do about it now, so moving on.

My birthday presents from Mark came a day late. TOTALLY worth the wait. A pretty, breezy, precious sundress from J. Crew - quintessential summer!


And a close-up of the lovely fabric. I love it! It's so pretty!


And - I finally have some cute black flip-flops! (That actually go with the dress quite well.) Aren't they cute? Thank you, dear husband, for feeding my new J. Crew addiction :)


Our plan was to go see Alice in Wonderland in 3D. That kind of didn't happen... because we shopped all day long!!

(I think I might be able to get away with posting this picture because it's worse of me than of Lissa.... squinty squinty!)


I totally said "Screw you!" to winter and wore a sweet cotton-knit sundress. And it was perfect. Perfect sun, perfect weather, perfect company :)

I bought another one of those favorite-ever bras from VS. And some jewelry from Charming Charlie's, which may or may not become my new cheap jewelry obsession... And then we went on an intense search to find Elissa a spring dress to wear on her date with the boy.

After much searching, we finally found one (PERFECT - white seersucker, looked amazing on her) only to realize that there was a tear in the seam. The nice lady (rather talkative with a rather annoying voice, but hey, if she's helpful...) gave Lissa a discount on the cute sweater she found to wear with it, and found another store close-by which had 2 of those same dresses in her size.

So I headed home to eat, and Lissa ran out and picked the other dress up.

She got home, and it wouldn't zip. Absolutely. would. not. zip. The same dress in the same size at the other store fit PERFECTLY and zipped with no problem. The new dress was mislabeled. And Matthew was on his way. Elissa had NO other appropriate clothes...

So, in a frantic scurry, I called Matthew and told him that we were having a wardrobe crisis, that Lissa had to leave and fix it and she would be back. She dashed out the door, and was leaving as Matthew pulled in. He is a good sport (I think he thinks we're funny) and she came back a little later in her cute pretty new dress (this one fit - thank GOD they had another) and looked adorable! Crisis averted!

Aren't they cute?


My friend is so pretty!


Yay for friends!


So today, I'm not sure what we'll do. I want to go to Cantina since we didn't get to go on Monday night, and I'm sad that Lissa has to leave :( But what a good birthday it has been! And, to make it even better, next week my best friend from college, Kristine, is coming to visit! Happy day! I love my friends :)

(And my sweet, sweet hubby who I get to see all the time. So glad at least he's not far away from me!)