{ a few highlights of the week } ::

this week has seemed to fly right on by! i guess it's true what they say...time flys when you're having fun!

brody has totally been into taking pictures with the camera, and i must say, for the most part he does a really great job. i even taught him how to do the timer. ha! it's fun to see things at his eye level. :)




this week has been so nice and warm. we've spent almost everyday outside. we were downtown the other day going to a fabric store and i realized that we were right by Bryd Park, we've only been there one other time, you can read about that adventure here. but with the weather being so great, we went over to another park called Maymont. it has a petting zoo, farm, all sorts of different gardens, and the Maymont Mansion. it's open to the public and you can roam all over the grounds. so we enjoyed a few hours of running (literally) around, seeing the farm animals, walking through the gardens, playing with sticks and enjoying a beautiful warm day. there even seems to be some signs of spring! hooray!!





i can't believe the month of february is almost over! this next week is a big week full of lots of fun and big adventures!!! i can't wait!

{ a president weekend } ::

thanks to my lovey hubby...he sent me off to Ohio for a wonderful 3-day weekend! it was filled with lots of friends, yummy food, and some baby love'in.
one of my besties had her baby two weeks ago and i got to go back and snug on that yummy little baby, awe it was heaven! my wonderful friend heather let me stay with her, and it was nothing but the best! my sweet friend tricia planned an "offical" goodbye dinner for me, seeing that i didn't really get to say goodbye to anyone before we moved due to christmas, it was so awesome to be able to eat dinner with my beautiful friends!! it was so fun to be back in columbus, it still feels like home. i even had time to drive through campus like we would do on a daily basis when we lived there. such fun times! it was a wonderful weekend that seriously filled my heart with so much love. it felt so good!




the boys had a "manly-man" weekend, as tyson likes to call it. i took the camera so they didnt document there fun. but they went to a super rad indoor blow-up jumping place, the zoo, church, the BASS PRO shop to see the fishes. they too had a great time spending time together!
they picked me up at the airport and brody loved all over me and they gave me flowers that tyson let brody picked out himself. boy, how i missed him! i missed both of them. but not having my little side kick by me for a few days, started to get lonely. brody carried my suit case all the way to the car. such a litte stud. i feel so lucky to have such an amazing hubsand who will take the time for me to go visit a place i've missed so dearly over the past 6 weeks (doesnt sound like very long, but it's felt longer than 6 weeks!) and plans a fun weekend for brody! oh how i love him!

{ life lately according to my pictures } ::

getting some new shoes - brody loved trying on shoes, almost hilarious on how happy he was to try them on. who knew shoes would bring him such happiness.

tyson's work sent him an amazingly awesome candy/treat package

we ate mcdonalds for breakfast at home one saturday morning

playing with playdough is seriously buisness

brody and i went to ROSS to look for some stuff and he loved the hats, he didnt want to take it. i had to brib him with some gum to leave the store!

thumbs up! feeling much better watching curious george on the ipad after throwing up. not awesome. we both got the stomach bug about a week and half ago. blah!

another thumbs up at the awesome BASS store

these two are best friends

on a walk with my boys in the amazing nice weather we've been having

we went to a pizza place downtown called 'Bottoms Up"...SO GOOD!

BUBBLES gone wild! we painted and then put brody in our tub and turned the jets on and the bubbles grew and grew. brody loved it.

my loves!

life doesn't get much better than this!

{ a day of love } ::

i'm not gonna to lie, valentine's day is without a doubt one of THE most cheesiest holidays out there and I LOVE IT! it's one of my favorites! but i am a believer in always showing love no matter the day! valentine's day just means you can go over the top with the mushy lovey dovey stuff! it's all pretty great if you ask me!

our valentine's day went a little something like this...

for starters there always need to be a few decorations and i love the prints i made. they turned out quite nice!





brody woke up to a fun heart-attacked downstairs, lovey balloons, and valentine treats.



breakfast consisted of strawberry and cream oatmeal with heart sprinkles, chocolate milk with marshmallows. yum!



we had a lunch date with tyson!



brody and i spent the rest of the afternoon at the children's museum painting and playing and then going home and playing with his balloons.



i think going out to eat on valentine's day to a resturant and waiting for 2+ hours to eat food is over-rated! so we hit up one of our favorite places to eat and went to Noodles and Company, yummy food and no wait! :)



we ended our night with peanut butter oreo shakes from a new favorite place of ours called 'cook-out', and then went home and the three of us had a dance party. it was a fabulous lovey dovey day!

{ all you need is LOVE } ::

{ brother and D.C. } ::

the weekend of january 21st my brother came out for a quick weekend visit before he headed down to North Carolina for a business meeting. we had such a great time! we ate yummy food, went to the Bass Pro Shop (his hunting heaven headquarters), and of course he couldn't stop into town with out a quick trip up to D.C. (a first for him), and let me remind we had just gone the previous weekend, but we were already itching to go back! it was quick trip indeed but well worth it!

let's not forget to mention that there was a slight ice storm the night before. here in Richmond and D.C. - but the roads were clear so we decided to go ahead and go.

i kid you not, it was FREEZING. FREEZING! we were bundled in layers, and we tried to keep walking to a minimum and we got so incredibly lucky and kept getting great parking spots everywhere we went. just thinking about this trip makes me cold!







we went over to the vietnam veterens memorial and found our uncle's name on the wall. it's definitely a humbling experience!



after seeing many of the sights we drove to the Capitol Building, once again we got a great parking spot, but not as close as we had thought. we kinda parked on the wrong side and had to walk all the way around to get in. there my or may not have been a little sibling bickery going on by this point. i was so cold and so mad we had to walk as far as we did that i was just about to walk back to the car when we found the entrance. good thing! we were all grouchy, had to pee and hungry. so not a good combination! let's not forget to mention that brody is a CHAMP traveler and was seriously enjoying everything! love him!



do you ever take pictures of yourself in public bathrooms? well, I did! i was so happy to be INSIDE, 200 layers of clothing peeled off and defrosting i had to capture my happiness. that friends, is my happiness! we walked around the captiol building and ate lunch. once we were all un-thawed, it was time to layer back up and head back outside (boo!). luckily when i mentioned we had a great parking spot, we did. and that spot was right in front of the Smithsoniam National Air and Space muesum. brody was not excited to go back into the cold, but when i told him we were going to Space he perked right up!
we spend the remainder of our time in the museum which was so spectacular and warm! we all loved it and brody thought space was fantastic! and it was nice that when we were done, the car was right outside the building waiting for us.





as we headed out to go home, the sunset was beautiful!

we had such a good time with my brother. brody adores his uncle jeremy. brody talks about his uncle jeremy nonstop and always thinks he's coming over to play! it was really sad to see him go, i may or may not have had a total crying meltdown as he was leaving. i did not want him to go. thanks brother for your visit! we look forward to you coming back!!

{ a D.C. first } ::

so the lovely bonus of living in Richmond is being so close to Washington, D.C.
we are just a little over an hours drive away, which is pretty much awesome.

we rolled into Richmond the weekend of january 8th so we spent that weekend moving stuff in. but the following weekend, we knew we wanted to go to IKEA which is about an hour away from us, and just happens to be like 15ish minutes outside of D.C. - we kinda figured if we were going to go to IKEA we should go take a quick peek of D.C. - seeing that neither of us had ever been there. so that's just what we did.
we hopped in the car and off we went. we just googled the address for the "Lincoln memorial" online and put the address into our GPS. we knew it was going to be a quick stop, so we didn't do any deep research, knowning we will go back many times! we made it in no time at all. we found a parking spot in the public parking lot over by the Jefferson memorial. and started our walk. it was cold! but we bundled. and when the sun was out you could feel its warmth, so it wasnt too bad.







we walked the big loop of monuments, memorials and the white house, we were super fast and it took us 2 hrs to do. it was fabulous. and we loved every minute of it! my favorite part was the Lincoln memorial, it was as fabulous as i had envisioned it in my mind!








we had a late lunch at the Shake Shack (one of our favorite places to eat in NYC), and it didn't disappoint in D.C. either. then we quickly headed over to Georgetown for some famous Spinkles cupcakes. it was our first time there and i was in cupcake heaven! some say Spinkles is over-rated cupcakes, but say what you want, they were AMAZING! we picked up some cupcakes up and then drove to IKEA, did some fun shopping for household items and then headed back home. we waited to eat our cupcakes until we got home, because we were stuffed from lunch. it was worth the wait! because they were de-lish! it was such a great day trip! and we can't wait to go back, again and again!

but then again pretty much going anywhere with these two is the best!

{ valentine goodie ideas } ::

now that i've shared some fun crafty ideas, here are some yummy treats to make for yourself, for your lovies, and friends!

1 heart brownies - no link for this one. just make a batch of yummy brownies and use a heart shaped cookie cutter to make these treats a little more special.

2 heart shaped meringues - this recipe suggest to use a passion fruit curd, but you could totally do lime curd, stawberry curd, lemon curd. you get the idea.

3 little chocolates and red velvet whoopie pies

4 yummy dipped oreos

5 valentine pops

6 heart pancakes - what a fun way to start out your valentine's day morning with a fun breakfast! i know i will be doing this for brody and tyson!

7 valentine bark - love making this stuff. i do it for seriously ever holiday. it's so good! i've yet to have a friend not like this stuff. and a lot of friends tell me that they don't even like white chocolate but they love it with this stuff. it's bomb.com! seriously make it!! it's even good with half white and milk chocolate. yum!

and don't forget to go here and here for more ideas!!

happy sweet yummy treat making!!!

{ valentine round-up } ::

Just one week from today is valentine's day! so to kick things off...it's a week full of love. so i thought i share some fun cute crafty valentine ideas!

1 bonbon filled hearts these would be fun with any sort of little treat

2 crayon hearts i LOVE doing this. it's so much fun. and kids LOVE it!

3 felt wreath this would be fun in any color

4 clothes pin hearts

5 valentine goody bags

6 rosette wreath

7 fortune cookies love this idea, especially if you add a little treat inside them

8 heart treat boxes

and don't forget you can get some cute vday prints right here!

happy week of love.

{ it's time for love } ::

it's february friends! one of the best months out of the whole year! one of my favorite parts of this month is that it starts out with Love! and as i have been sifting through pins on pinterest i can't help but love all the creative ideas people have to celebrate/decorate for valentines. so with that i took inspiration and ideas from others on pinterest and designed some of my own prints to put in frames to deocorate around our house (pictures to come soon)!

and i thought i would share the love...







set one::
here and here

set two::
here and here

set there::
here and here

print them on your own home computer, or save them as a jpeg and get them printed anywhere!

happy month of love!

{ Quack Attack } ::

brody and i went and checked out this awesome park downtown last week and it was nice enough to feed the ducks. little did we know, that as soon and we pulled up those little suckers knew we were there to feed them. they were waiting by the car door for us. brody thought it was hilarious and couldn't stop laughing. well the honker huge ducks (seriously they were huge and the pictures just make them look like little ducks, so not the case!) we were swarmed by these russian geese and seagulls. it was terrifying! ha! i gave brody a piece of bread and told him to hurry and throw it - but he didn't act fast enough and a "duck" (huge honker) came right up and grabbed it from him and bit his hand. sad. but brody was okay. i finally picked brody up and put him on my shoulders and i pretty much screamed the entire rest of the time throwing the bread to these huge animals as fast as possible! once the bread was gone, they backed off. phew! then i let brody free to chase those fellas into the water. let's just say we won't be feeding those ducks anytime soon or ever again!