well it's no Trans Am but...

I think we did a bang-up job anyway. This is the grooms cake Adrienne & I made for Jeff...Friday at 1am. The day before, I decided we needed a cake for the rehearsal dinner and what could be more perfect than a Trans Am cake...yeah well that was never going to happen. Try doing a google search for Trans Am cake...it's useless. The next bext option was a Guitar Hero/Rock Band cupcake-cake. Guitar Hero/Rock Band has been a major force is our relationship with Jeff. Many, many a night has been spent in Kelly & Jeff's living room, creeping past 4am, doing just one more song. Ok, next step was to do a google search for that. The results were either ridiculously hard to replicate, especially on such short notice..or they were too simple and really didn't look like much. So we broke out our actual guitar and did our best to copy it. Whacha think?

does this lighting make me look disgusting? Indeed it does!

Realized I forgot to let you in on why the mad rush to get things done around the casa...John & I are hosting Kelly & Jeff's rehearsal dinner this Friday night! We're lucky to have a little extra space plus ample parking so we offered up the use of the house and they accepted. Hence the need for bathroom mini makeover...which is still in progress, but will be done by Friday night.

50 people did not need to see the drop ceiling with flourescent lighting that existed in my bathroom up until 2 days ago. I mean, really, who puts ceiling panels with flourescent lighting in a bathroom?!?!? Oh right, a man. A woman wouldn't torture her worst enemy by making them check themselves out under flourescent lighting. Seriously...would you want to live like this?

memorial day in mulch city

For the past couple of months, we've been the proud owners of a half acre of land. Just a tad bit overwhelming when we've only been used to a postage stamp size yard that we paid someone else to mow. But now, it's on. We spent the majority of the weekend sprucing the place up. It started when 13 yards of mulch were delivered Friday morning. That afternoon, my brother came over and we got to work and went non-stop. Here's some highlights.

the front of the house all nasty-like...

Josh building a fun little rock wall to hold the mulch and John doing what John does best...supervise

You wouldn't know it, but this is the finished product. Our luck, as soon as we lay down the beauteous black mulch, the tree above sent down those little helicopters all over the place. Thus ruining the effect. Greatttt.

Yes, that below is what mulch is supposed to look like!

We have this fun little path that leads across the front of the rhododendron bush but it was bare down to the dirt. Josh hooked it up with some grass seed and laid these paving stones. It reminds me of the stones my grandmom had at her house in front of the rhododedrons when I was little. My cousins and I would hide behind the monstrous bush and play witch and capture and all kinds of stuff that makes me happy thinking about now. I am totally re-creating it for my future kiddos.

Mad props to my brotha for guiding us in the lay of the land and donating man hours to the cause. ferris bueller, you're my hero.

i accomplished 3 things last night

• I trimmed out the bathroom off of our kitchen in preparation for painting. This baby is going from builders white to Laura Ashley Apple 6 courtesy of Lowe’s. I’ve decided to do a mini makeover on the bathroom which includes the paint, new toilet (Kohler Cimarron, Comfort Height in case you were wondering), new mirror and accessories. And this mini makeover must be done in less than two weeks. Why? I’ll tell you later.

  
• I watched the season finale of How I Met Your Mother, my most favorite show. Did you watch it? Did anyone else thing Lily was really going to be pregnant? They were doing some serious hiding of her midsection. I thought when they were jumping over the building, she would reveal it, but I guess not. And how much do you love Barney?

• Ok, I didn’t accomplish this but John did while I sat next to him so it counts, right? We booked our trip to Hawaii! Or Honolulu, or Waikiki Beach to be more specific. In just five short months, we get to take a real vacation! I haven’t had one of those in awhile and really, can you think of a better place to go? Usually when we go somewhere, we’re on the go, being tourist-y and I love it. But this time I refuse. Yeah, I’ll go see the sites for a day or two, but the rest of the time, I will be doing it up Milton-style, on the beach with Mai Tai’s. Oh and eating as much pork as I can stuff down my throat. Ohhh, I can’t wait!

Pretty eventful for a little ol Monday

flashback friday - DIY wedding edition

So it's wedding season in Shannon-land. And by season, I mean just one, huge, very important wedding. It's just two weeks away! So in honor of 2 weeks of madly rushing around on crafty adventures to make every detail perfect, I'm flashing back all the way to 2006. Ok, seriously, when I was getting married and wanted to make my invites, there was nothing in the way of DIY. I had the choice of plain white invites or plain white invites with a pearlized border. But have you seen the wedding aisle at Michael's or Target? They're freakin beautiful! If they had been around a mere 3 years ago, I wouldn't have gone through the hours and hours of madness that I did. Oh well, at least 3 years later, I still love the invites I made. They may look DIY but that's kinda what I appreciate about them.

Hotel, Motel, Holiday Inn...

Caesar's actually. This past weekend, we ponied up for one of the nicest hotels in Atlantic City. Is is sad that this is pretty much the nicest room I've ever stayed in? I'm normally a Hojo kinda girl because face it, my money is better spent in the hotel bar.

Check out this gorgeous headboard & bolster. And sooo comfortable too.

This baby almost ended up in my suitcase. It would look perfect in my bedroom.

What would you call this? A credenza? Who knows, but it was super fanc-schmanc and it held drawers behind it. My super-photo-editing skills wiped out those 14 empty champagne splits that some classy girls downed while getting primped.

Oh, a light. Yes, I know what they are. Purty, huh?

Totally my style...

Just a little lodging eye candy for ya, hope you enjoyed!

the night we'd all been waiting for

Saturday afternoon, we packed up and headed an hour away to Atlantic City, our East coast Vegas, for Kelly's bachelorette party. We started the evening out with an amazing dinner at The Continental ay Caesars. Course after course of delicous food came out like French Onion Soup Dumplings, Wasabi Mashed taters and the best carrot cake I've had since my favorite restaurant discontinued their 8 layer carrot cake...sad, sad day. But I digress. 25 of us dressed up all purty-like and had a ton of fun.

Yay, another pic to add to our collection. How fun is her zebra and teal combo? love it. And my shirt is courtesy of Wet Seal. yes, Wet Seal, the teeny-bopper store that also sells shiny gold leggings. Loved it as well.

My new 2d bff Ali! Hi Ali! Ali is Kelly's friend from work who reads my blog. Yay, someone reads my blog! She let me know that she was battling me to see if she could take more pics that I did. So send em over Ali! Oh and we slow-danced together at the bar. We twirled.

ladeez

Kelly & Katie, my co-maid of honor

more ladeez

After dinner, we headed to the Quarter at the Tropicana. Everyone was told to bring a funny hat because my crew doesn't do the normal wedding veil and sash deal. We like to think we're a tad more creative. And face it, when you're in a bar with 3 different bach-parties going on, wearing a conductor hat, or beanie or chef hat or even a viking helmet tends to garner a little more attention than girls in matching Soon-to-be-Mrs shirts. And we all like more attention, don't we? Or is that just me?

I think we rolled back into the hotel room at 5:30am, which I was so proud of. I can still hang! I think everyone had an awesome time and we pulled off another fantastic bach party. Hope you had fun Kel! Now the countdown is on, we've got 3 weeks til the big day. Lets make some placecards!

mamaaaa...just killed a man...

No, not really. But she did come over for a home-cooked meal in her honor. I have the best mom in the world. No seriously, ask anybody. She is the kindest, gentlest, most compassionate woman I've ever met. She deserves a tear-jerker card and yummy meal every day. Somehow we managed to pull together a Sandra Lee tablescape and dinner after the longest weekend ever. We invited my mom, my Nan, my aunt, brother and the kids over this afternoon and stuffed ourselves with Parmesan crusted chicken, baby potatoes and fancy champagne.

Happy Mother's Day to my wonderful Ma and all the rest of you Mamaaas out there!

Oh and yes, that is a sneak peek of the breakfast room and family room. As soon as the final details are in place, I'll be back with pics, I swear.

why i spend my lunch hour at target

Target is across the street from my office. It’s dangerous. Veddy dangerous. I walked in today looking for a cute bag for bachelorette party this weekend and walked out with half of this ensemble. Ok, by half, I mean the dress. And a necklace and belt that look like the Mary Kate to the polyvore’s Ashley version. I blame the raspberry and orange color combo on John and Sherry at This Young House. What can I say, I’m easily persuaded by other’s opinions. But c’mon, it’s fun, is it not? Anyway, the dress is adorable and even more adorable was the $25 price tag. And I actually have a place to wear this ensemble, which is a surprise. Next month, I’ve got my grandmom’s 85th birthday party on the same day as John’s bowling banquet (woot!!), so this outfit will do double duty. So now I just need some cute gold shoes and an orange bag…which most likely will be replaced with a gold bag because I would never use an orange bag again.

Anyway, what do you think?

Oh and don’t make fun of my first attempt at a Polyvore board, please, thanks.