Keep Calm & Brunch On

The day we wait for each month with baited breath finally came.  There are 7 of us girls (on my mom's side) that live in town and once a month we try to get together for an outing, activity or meal to reconnect and check-in.  I was up early making final preparations for our cousins brunch this morning.

This month only four of us were available, Christina, Michaela, Shiloh and I...and the 7 littles between us, noshed on delectable brunch bites and sipped on hot coffee with a spot of cream while we updated each other on the past month of our lives.  Christina left before I remembered we needed to memorialize our April Brunch with a picture...clearly I'm the worst sister ever!!

Our menu consisted of a frittata, scones, biscuits and a variety of specialty spreads.  A ginger-orange punch and hot coffee comprised the refreshments.

I hope I sent the gals home with full tummies and hearts and tired littles!

It was a jolly good time and a gorgeous day in many ways.  Now we are looking for to our May outing!

xoxo - j

Pack Pride

The strength of the wolf is the pack.  The Law of the Jungle is the one of my favorite parts of the start of every Nevada game!  Today, escorted by own Nevada alums, we headed to Mackay Stadium for a fantastic scrimmage between the Nevada football first string and the rest of the team.

The second stringers started the game 27 points ahead and did a good job of holding their own in the first half of the scrimmage.  If anything dampered the day it was the wind, but I can assure you that  it did not stop the boys from having the time of their lives.

We are nothing but loyal to the silver and blue!  Go Pack!!

xoxo - j

Family History Crush

I have a crush.  A family history crush.  No, not in a creepy weird way.  Rather in a way that makes my heart smile when things are passed down to my family from an older generation.

Nearly two months ago I was sitting in my empty childhood home, rocking out to country music, carefully bubble wrapping all of my moms crystal and china.  And then I asked Trevor to move it all over to our house, which he lovingly did.

I carefully selected the perfect location for the handmade china hutch, built my none other than my super cool dad!!!  Now before you go getting sad and sentimental I have to say Sister and I carefully split the family heirlooms in half.  She got bedroom furniture, couches and my moms cedar chest.  Plus loads of other, smaller things that held sentimental value to her.

The next step was to put all the china back into the hutch...but I just couldn't do it.  I don't know if it didn't feel like it belonged in my house or if it was the finality of my mom living in assisted living, but I just couldn't do it.  And then my grandma died and I felt like my world kept crumbling.

Finally, I came out of my fog and decided I was sick of all the boxes sitting in my front room...again.  Much to my delight Trevor understood that I needed to do this in my own time, so when I announced last night that I was ready to get rid of the boxes I don't think he truly believed me at first.

But since I have instant gratification issues and no plans to work through them anytime soon, I rolled up my sleeves and got to work.

In unpacking all these boxes, I unearthed loads of crystal stemware and vintage bar ware.  I also had Trevor reconstruct our very own Lumiere, a candelabra that was on the mantle of the McDonald Drive home 18 years ago.  Love!!!

A view of the completed project, and note I wanted to keep it as uncluttered as possible.

And now that it's all said and done, my family history crush has turned in to a full fledged love affair.

We also enjoyed a very fun impromptu dinner with K and M - dining on tatertot casserole and strawberry shortcake and hours of laughing  - and now it's time to start my Sunday!

xoxo - j

All Dolled Up

Spring seems to finally have started and one of my favorite days is always Easter.  Trevor had to work today so I needed to come up with something quick, cute and easy to execute by myself.  To complicate the matter ever so slightly, I agreed to help with Sunday School at the 9 am service.  Who wants to get up at the crack of dawn anyway?!  Thankfully the Easter Bunny showed up at The Nook a day early and hid loads of eggs in the backyard and out did himself on the pipsqueaks' baskets!  So, we started our morning with waffles and church where we got to do a super cool science experiment to show the littles about Jesus' resurrection and then we did loads of crafts.  After that was all said and done we were famished!!  Well what else could we do but go to Doughboy's for some delish donuts?!

After picking out the perfect donuts we headed home to spend our day playing outside, riding bikes and having a good ole fashioned game of backyard baseball!

This ah-dorable table awaited us at Aunt Liz's house when we arrived for dinner.  While the adults ate appetizers and had cocktails the kiddos hid eggs for each other and had a blast finding eggs filled with jellybeans and starbursts!!

What makes holidays oh so worth it are when these three little boys come up to me and tell me "thank you for making Easter so fun!"  I love making everything as fun as I possibly can for them!!  I just hope the weather stays nice so we can do more fun things outside this week before we head back to school!!

Happy Easter y'all!!

xoxo - j