Slumber Parties Are For Friends

This past weekend I somehow managed to drive myself back up to Nashville with half of one eye (ugh. Still having some really bad problems with my good eye after scratching the cornea 3 weeks ago. Driving myself was not only stupid, but probably not safe...). Anyway, it was for a good cause! Miss Lauren's 30th birthday slumber party. Yes, so fun! I had been looking forward to this for well over a month and the guest list didn't disappoint. Partaking in the festivities were: Birthday girl Lauren, Lauren T, Jill, Jen, Jenna, Lisa, Elle and myself. We started the night by chowing down on delicious pizza, then we broke out Cards Against Humanity and entirely too much wine. I brought along the ingredients to whip up a dozen or so New Old Ladies, too. After entirely too much laughing and yelling, we broke out Quelf to play. I was excited to bring it over since no one except Elle had heard of it (how?! It's SO fun!) We played and drank and finally decided it would be a smart move to cut ourselves off after a few hours of hoopin' and hollerin' haha Jill and Lisa headed out while the rest of us plopped down in the living room and chatted until half past 4 in the morning. Seriously, few things are better than long conversations with friends. After a half night's sleep or so we decided to wake up and head over to Nashville Biscuit House for some much needed brunch and coffee. After even more conversation and chit chat (along with some deelish grub), we all loaded up our cars from Lauren's house and went on our merry way. My merry way included driving the 3 blocks to my own house and crashing for a 3 hour nap in the middle of the day. I think you'd be hard pressed to find one of us who didn't need a nap after all of the fun!

We all had so much fun that I think we forgot to take a lot of photos! I borrowed all of the DSLR ones from Miss Jenna (the cutest in all the land!) and the IG images are my own. Jenna also made that amazing birthday cake up there!

It was the perfect mix of middle school and adulthood. I mean, c'mon... a slumber party! So grateful for those silly ladies (and new friends!). I hope our monthly mixers continue well into 2013 and beyond!

Any of y'all partake in adult/friend slumber parties still?

Happiest of birthdays, Lauren! (It was yesterday! Go tell her happy belated!) I hope 30 is the very best year yet!

It's The Little Things...

♥ Like bright red smooches on the faces of your furry lil' munchkins...

♥ Mid-day coffee breaks on your inevitable Target run (with a really handsome fella, at that!)...

♥ Knowing that even though your best friend is over 500 miles away, you can call her up for any (or no) reason at all...

♥ Hot cider and a sharing a piece of chocolate cake (with Maya!) on a snowy day downtown...

♥ And even a 60 pound pup passed out across your lap, and another sweet lil' biscuit cuddled next to that...

Let's not even mention the tons of you who come here every single day to share your words of encouragement... always when I need them, and even otherwise. Sometimes it's nice to step back for a few days (even if against my will) and appreciate how awesome everything is. Today I'm looking forward to lots of emails, design work, and a coffee date with this sweet gal. Y'all are amazing. xo

Two If By Sea

This is a dress I picked up at H&M when Mike and I first visited Susannah & Chris back in June. I had seen SB wear it and I thought it was darling. Of course being that it was from H&M meant only that I was to never have it in my grasp. The fact Nashville still doesn't have an H&M is really beyond me. Anyway, on our drive up there I found it in the store for a whopping $10. They also had the pink version (and I bought it. So did Susannah!) It's pretty safe to say that we have a ton of the same dresses. We thought it'd be fun to style this one up each and share how the other did it! 

I paired mine with a mustard American Rag jacket I thrifted last year and some caramel colored Charlotte Russe flats (also thrifted). I thought the blue was an absolute perfect match for this sweet travel bag I scored for all of 15 cents! There really wasn't much to it, but I really liked this outfit! You'll be seeing quite a bit of yellow on the blog in the next few outfits so brace yourself!

Susannah looked darling in her pea-green cardi and bow flats (I was wearing the same flats not 10 minutes before we took these pictures. I decided to switch them out at the last minute haha!) The blue tights are so not something I would've thought of, but she pulls them off perfectly. If you wanna read more about her outfit and all that jazz, pop over to her blog and check it out!

How would you style this dress?

H&M dress
American Rag jacket (thrifted)
Charlotte Russe flats (thrifted)
Hive + Honey fascinator 
Thrifted bag


PS; Peep the picture on the left in the 1st collage (under the top image up there!)... That's my "mawdul" face haha! Mike told me to give him my best model pout so that's what I went for. There were a few outtakes of me doing the "prune" lip pursing like MK&A. Ridiculous! Don't worry, I know I look comical!

PPS; Susannah and I (and Chelsea!) totally think those are abstract sailboats on the dress. Do you agree?! They have to be. Just because I said they are.

A Picture An Hour (Chicago Saturday)

I tweeted publicly, told Susannah to remind me, and set my alarm Saturday morning as "A picture an hour!"... I had every intention on really pulling through this time! Last time we were on vacation with Chris & Susannah I really meant to do one, but alas I forgot. This time though, I stuck it out! Until the last 2 or so hours, that is. We didn't wake up until 11am but that was because we had a long and very eventful Friday night. It may or may not have included darts, new old ladies at a little dive bar, awkward run-ins with a drunk lady, 3am bike rides (and subsequent 3am bike wrecks...). I still have a doozy of a bruise on my knee to prove it. (Thank goodness the people whose front yard I face-planted in weren't awake! Yikes!) I'm not the most graceful person and the bike I was on didn't have any hand-brakes so I was at a loss for how to stop the darn thing. Alas, I just went (down) with it.

Anyway, here you go!

11am - coffee and lounge time. trying to wake our bodies up for the day ahead.

12pm - finishing the "getting ready" portion. makeup, nails, etc.

1pm - saying "so long" to mr. little jeans and making our way out the door. mine & susannah's cars. & sweet susannah!

2pm - in the car. on our way to nom on some sushi station. being silly in the backseat.

3pm - finally! we have arrived. sushi time. the veggie rolls were delicious! mine and susannah's iphones. aren't they cuteeee?!

4pm - leaving sushi station. heading to target to pick up things for the cookout.

6pm - the boys play a handful of games on the wii while we kill time.

7pm - bottles are open and the chit chat begins.

8pm - burgers are ready and corn on the cob is awkward to eat. 

10pm - the conversation moves indoors as a result of the overwhelming amount of mosquitos.

11pm - mike is already pooped, but we start to get our second wind.

12am - chris plays his guitar and topher entertains us with his antics. twitter tweets, too! 

Not pictured: the many breaks taken outside on the front porch, run-ins with strange people, disappearing guests down the road, being entirely too loud for a small neighborhood, walking to the bonner road inn bar at 1am, subsequent new old ladies and fantastic conversation, walking back home at 2am and proceeding to grill out (again) and the intensely epic business convo that i got into with susannah and mike... then feeling inspired and heading to bed around 3:30am. All in all: a very good/needed vacation!

My Super Secret Happy Surprise!

So that silly secret surprise I was so excited about...

Yesterday was an awesome day as Mike and I hopped in the car and drove 9 hours north to Chicago! All for the sake of surprising Miss Susannah Bean on her (belated) birthday! We told her we weren't going to be able to make it (and we weren't), but after both Mike and I got bummed we decided to drive up anyway, make it happen, and surprise her! Chris was in on the whole thing luckily (we had to have someone up here help us coordinate!) We were going to surprise her at work but decided just sitting on her couch when she got in from a long shift was a better idea. We're super excited to be here and help her start off her 25th year! Do you read Susannah's blog? If you don't, you should. She's adorable! We're off to make a day of it! Hopefully I'll be back to share more soon! xo

Come Sail Away, Cocoapuff.

My dream dress has arrived! I remember first seeing this dress on Pinterest and dying over it! I quickly scoured the source link (Topshop) for my size and much to my dismay they were long gone. Only a size 2 remained! I'm very wary of ordering clothing from the UK simply because I can't even manage to order the correct US size online. Add a few thousand miles worth of transit and returns/exchanges become seemingly impossible. (Yes, I know there's a Topshop in the US.. but it's only in NYC and I don't live there anymore and if you order from Topshop.com (which I did), the items are shipped from the UK still. Bummer!). Anywhoo- I had to have this dress. A lovely lady on Tumblr linked it to me in a UK size 12 (US 8) on Ebay and I scooped it up without any hesitation. It's a little bit in the waist but otherwise it's pure perfection! I am so enamored with the cut, color and style. And the pattern, too!

I've been wearing it quite a bit since receiving it Thursday, I won't lie. I've really been playing my love of nauticals up as of late! It's been really really hot here in Nashville, so you're probably wondering why I'm sporting the cardigan and tights. I tend to live my life indoors during Tennessee summers. They are brutal, at best. Air conditioning is so very my best friend. Still, it's a bit unseasonably warm for early April so I'm hoping the showers coming our way will cool it down some. Until then, my We Love Colors tights are the best and most comfortable tights to be wearing! (I just need to replace these as they seem to have bleach spots on them! Oops!)

Work this weekend was exhausting. I will leave it at that. Our friends Merissa and JT stopped by yesterday to see the place, and Elle and Bryan came by on Thursday evening for a tour and we grabbed some yummy Mexican at RosePepper in East Nashville. I'm looking forward to Bryan coming back over tomorrow night for some quality hang time! I'm also about to dive into fun decorations for Merissa's baby shower next month! So very very very excited to be involved and I just love her (and all the other gals associated!). Ready to welcome that baby in with a Mexican fiesta! I love living so much closer to my favorite people. It's a good thing! xo

Topshop dress
Thrifted belt
Target cardigan
Tights c/o of We Love Colors
Target flats
Canal Street/NYC bag
Forever 21 oversized flower

PS; My hair is much more "ginger" today! I opted for a more natural/orange red and I'm in love! It's from the same supplier on Ebay (epiccosplay) and it's the perfect shade of red I always wished to have! (It's a bit more copper/orange in real life. Hard to see in the photos!) Also- I promise I'm not high in these pictures! I didn't take my Zyrtec today so my allergies are the equivalent of a major world war!