life through instagram: 8/31/12.

coffee date w/ Sam

obsessed with this packaging

my babies

a moment of calm in the storm

my mom got some new wheels

my snuggle bug

new sea lion exhibit at the STL zoo

baller seats at the cards game

two things: love this guy, and look at my hair. it is so long.

bros

sam's last first day of school

damn my parents for instilling the need to have dessert after every meal.

sunday chores leisure activities.

raining on sunday.

no filter, creepin on my workaholic.

diy: {hangover kits}

I mentioned in this post that I made "hangover kits" for A's bachelorette party. They were super easy to put together, mostly because I knew I was going to do this so I started buying things whenever I had to go to Target, CVS, or Wal-Mart for something else.


First up, what I put in them!

Clockwise from the Sprite: Sprite, Tylenol, Tums, Lifesavers Mints, Orbit gum, Makeup remover wipes, a travel first aid kit, and some mouthwash.

Then, I printed out this little saying and cut it out with my circle cutter.

This was way harder than I thought it would be. I was terrible at centering the saying in the circle.

I then punched out some more circles and wrote all of the girls' initials on them so they'd be a little more personal.

And then tied the bags up with some cute ribbon!

What do you like the morning after a bachelorette party? My drugs of choice are a bottle of water and a bowl of plain white rice. Random, but I swear it works!


PS: Welcome those of you who found this post on Pinterest! Leave a comment below and let me know what you would add (or take out of!) these bags!!

crockpot cooking {taco soup}

Sam's parents recently redid their kitchen, and when his mom was reorganizing everything, she found an extra crockpot and graciously gave it to us, since the one we had was tiny. Since she gave it to us (like a week ago), I've been obsessively scouring the web for crockpot recipes! Since I have to work such long/weird hours, being able to throw something in the crockpot is essential if we want to not eat out every night.

This recipe is so easy, it took me less than 10 minutes to prepare (seriously).


Two cans of each of these...

 Two packets of each of these...

Brown some meat (not pictured, because it grosses me out), chop some veggies...

...and voila!  A hearty soup, and super delicious.


"Slow Cooker Taco Soup" 
via AllRecipes.com

• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 2 packages taco seasoning mix
• 1 2 packages ranch dressing mix
• 1 2 cans diced tomatoes and green chiles, undrained
• 1 2 cans corn, undrained
• 1 2 cans black beans, undrained
• 1 (15 ounce) can sliced black olives (sick, omitted these)
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 green bell pepper, diced
• 1 cup tomato juice (I really don't feel like you need this because it's soupy enough if you don't drain the cans).

Serve with sour cream, cheese, and chips.

As you can tell, I doubled most of the recipe, because we both love this, so I wanted to have leftovers. I'm trying to decrease the amount of red meat we eat, though, so I didn't double the ground beef!

pinterest projects {mizzou wreath}

We have a lot of school spirit around this apartment...some more (Sam) than others (me). Even though I am not the type to sign on to PowerMizzou for hours or follow all of the Missouri Tiger Football/Basketball players on Twitter, I do bleed black and gold and am always so proud to say I went there.


Football season kicks off next weekend, and I'm super excited I get to go to the game (even more excited that my BFF Sara will be there with me!), so in the spirit of things, I scratched another Pinterest Project off my long to-do list.


Here's some Pinspiration:

via

via

I had a general idea of what I wanted to do, so I went to Michaels (they just built an AMAZING two story Michaels about 10 minutes from our apartment--it's in an old Borders, Rest In Peace, and it is HUGE) and browsed for all of the materials.


This is where I made one of my few mistakes of the project. I looked at the Michaels ad online on Thursday and saw all of their ribbon was on sale for 40% off, holla! I thought to myself "make sure you go get this before Sunday!" and then I went on my merry way today (aka, SUNDAY) and was shocked when the ribbon wasn't on sale anymore. Ugh. Work is messing my mind up big time! I decided since I was there anyway I would just go ahead and buy it, but it was pricey and I kind of regret being impatient. Story of my life.

Ah, one of my favorite color schemes!

 I also picked up some gold paint, black letters, and a sheet of wooden pine to use to affix the letters to the wreath.

There are a LOT of different wreaths at Michaels. I got this one because I knew I was just going to cover it in ribbon, so it didn't really matter what it looked like underneath. This one was only $3.50, whereas some of the other floral wreaths were $9, $10, or $12.

On my way to check out, I found these little Christmas ornaments in the dollar zone! 

I started trying to wrap the thick black ribbon all the way around the wreath, but only got halfway around before it ran out. Here is mistake #2. When you buy ribbon, check the yardage. Some of the ribbon I bought were 3 yards long, some were 10. I ran out of ALL of the 3 yd ribbon. 

Instead, I spaced it out a bit. It turned out totally fine. 

 I then cut some ribbons into equal length and started tying them at random around the wreath, making sure to cover up the straw parts first.

 I then painted the pine gold and hot glued the letters to it, then hot glued the pine to the wreath.

I then attached the ornaments at random to polish it off! I think it turned out pretty well :). 

In fact, I love it so much, I hung it on the INSIDE of our door, so I can see it all the time (and no one can take it!). 

Are you ready for college football season? Who are you going to be rooting for?

a's bachelorette party

As I've mentioned a time or 5, one of my very best friends got married earlier this June in Florida. It was a blast, and we'll get to the wedding, but in the meantime, I wanted to share some details from the bachelorette party.

My friend Cortney is really great at picking a theme and sticking to it when it comes to parties, so I tried to take a leaf out of her book and stick to a "theme". I wasn't as good as Cortney (though that would be really, really hard to do), but I think I did okay!

A and I aren't very "pink" people, but apparently every other female in the world is, so when I was looking for plates/napkins, they were ALL pink.Therefore, A got a VERY pink bachelorette party!

We started the day with a trip to a local winery for a wine tasting. That was a ton of fun, though they had a lot more red wines than white, which isn't my fav. They also had a bunch of unique wines (aka, Chocolate Cherry Kiss, yum!).

 

We then headed downtown to dance the night away! This is where most of my planning (aka Pinteresting) came in! It was hard to be sneaky because A has a Pinterest as well and I didn't want her to know what I had planned!

 

I've already done a post about the DIY wine glasses shown in the pictures below, but I utilized Pinterest for a ton of stuff.

Our spread!

These hangover kits are all over Pinterest as well as the web. To purchase them from an outside website would be like $50, but it cost me much less than that to make 6 of them. I tried to get things that people would use even if they didn't need them the next morning, though I know of at least one person who broke into it before we left the hotel! I will do a separate post showing everything that I included.

The cupcakes were a mix from a box (I was running out of time), and then the frosting was a recipe that we've used forever (my mom and I) and then swirled on using the Pampered Chef Easy Accent Decorator which I would love to steal from my mom.

I also made Red Velvet Crinkle Cookies found via Two Peas & Their Pod and they were delicious!

And then borrowing a leaf from Cortney's book, I made some DIY water bottle labels! Obviously the running theme was "From Miss to Mrs.", and there was also a banner I made that said it that we hung up, though I forgot to snap a picture of it.

After some champagne and margarita drinking and getting to know each other a bit better, we headed out on the town.

My hair was a hot mess this evening, which is pretty much the only thing I can say about these pictures. What a disaster.

It was a great night with a great group of girls, and I KNOW A had a ton of fun! I know I had a ton of fun planning it!

The World's Worst Pet Parent

That would be me.

A few weeks ago, my mom, aunt, and cousin came to visit me & scope out my new apartment. They brought this little monster with them:

 
To be honest, I was a little worried about her coming here because she's had trouble adjusting to new places, things, and people (not that I was new, and neither was Sam, but still), and especially has had trouble adjusting to life sans other dogs. When Charlie died, it seemed like it was almost a full blown medical emergency, not going to lie.

My trepidation mostly lied with the fact that I when I work, I'm gone for around 14 hours (don't believe any nurse that says they are only gone for 12, it's a lie). Sam is here much more than me for now, but then school starts and then next year he'll hopefully be a lawyer somewhere, and that doesn't exactly scream "I have an 8-5 job!".

 Long story short, Miss Bella only hung out with us for about a week. It wasn't because she was stressed out, or because she was lonely and wouldn't eat, or walk, or generally live life. In fact, she was really good.

It was because I cried every night when I came home from work and she was so excited to see me she barked and spun in circles.

And how I couldn't leave her for more than 2 hours without wanting to rush home.

And the fact that our apartment (while plenty nice and big for the two of us at this juncture of our life) is about the half the size of my parents living room/kitchen area.

So I went home for a visit for a few days and had planned on taking her with me so she could see Albie. When we got to Smithville, she jumped out of the car and immediately started sprinting around the yard. You know she could smell home. And then she saw this munchkin: 

                                      

 And it was all over from there. He missed her, she missed him, and the way they were jumping all over each other I knew there was no way she was coming back to St. Louis in the near future.

Seriously. It makes me so sad and honestly I wish they could be with me all of the time. I would take them both in a heartbeat. If we had a house. And a yard. It's just not fair to Bella to be alone for so long when in Smithville, someone is home almost 22 hours each day. And Albert is there 24/7.

There you have it. World's Worst Pet Parent. Also, I'm pretty sure we're going to get a cat, which makes me feel like I'm cheating on my dog.