kiss me, i'm irish!!

If I had a dollar for every time someone said "Wow. Molly Doolan? That's an Irish name if I've ever heard one!" I would have at least 25 dollars.

I love my Irish ancestry.

So much that I barely know what my other ancestry is.


Anyway, Happy St. Patrick's Day! Make sure you wear your green. I'm going to rock this Minnie Mouse shirt I found at Target for like $8.

I know the babies will love it.

wednesday ramblings

A mom at the hospital has told me twice in one week that she thinks my hair color is beautiful (I'm not lying, she emphasizes it like nobody's business). I am flattered. I told her she just needs to get it dyed about once a year and then be too cheap to go back and have her stylist dye it again. It also makes me want to obnoxiously toss my head back and forth like you see girls do in slow-mo hair commercials. You know exactly what I mean.

I did send this picture to one of my friends before the aforementioned mother complimented me on my hair color...so maybe I'm a little weird about my hair. Whatever.



Sam and I went to get a Christmas tree today, holla! My parents stopped getting real trees before I can even remember having them because they were lazy my mom didn't like vacuuming up pine needles in July. Whatev. Sam and I went the practical route: we don't have to store a real tree.

I apparently inherited some of my mother's laziness (and Sam got some from somewhere) because we definitely stuffed this tree into the back of Sam's Accord instead of tying it to the roof. It fit (almost) perfectly and we only had to roll down one of the windows to get it to fit. Winning. We also helped (or at least tried to help) an elderly lady who also went the baller route and put her tree in the back of her car, but she was on the ball and didn't really want need our help.



I'm like a year and a half late and about a million dollars short, but I recently discovered this blog

and I think I'm in love. Erin is hilarious and I may or may not have gone back and read her blog from the beginning.


I am voluntarily working New Year's Day this year. I'm involuntarily working Christmas Eve & Day, which means I'm working 3 of the 4 winter holidays. Super brilliant, right? At least I'll be getting paid for my time and effort (sort of, but I like my job so I'll refrain from ranting about it here).

I recently did two things in our bedroom: bought a new duvet cover and fashioned a headboard out of Christmas lights. Equally obsessed with both things. The only issue I am having though is I have no idea what sort of pillow shams to go with our new duvet. I didn't get matching ones because I thought it'd be too much grey/white chevron. What colors do you all think go with this color scheme? Obviously I'm not going to be able to leave my brown pillows from my old comforter set on my bed much longer, it's driving me nuts.

weekend update

I realized a few days ago I haven't been updating the ol blog much lately. I have been crazy busy and I haven't really had a lot of exciting things happening, since I'm not about to bore you with details about school, and that's basically my whole life.

My "resolution" of taking more pictures hasn't been going very well, partially because I forget to take my camera anywhere (and then I left it in St. Louis), and also because well, I just forget. I remembered a few times this weekend, hence the weekend update!


Sam was in town this weekend to celebrate Valentine's Day, and we had so much fun! Here's our weekend in pictures (and pictures found on the internet because I forgot to take my own...).

On Friday, we went out to eat with my carbon copy Chelsea and her bf, Nathan at Conrad's. It was delicious and super reasonably priced, and great because it was one of those evenings when you totally lose track of time.

We then headed to the movies to see The Vow. I was really, really, really sad because I was looking forward to this movie for MONTHS and I was sort of disappointed by it. I thought I'd be the only one, but then I realized it got a 28% on Rotten Tomatoes so then I thought, "maybe I should be a movie critic!" I would give it a C+...maybe a B-. Let's just say I nodded off at one point, and that's not a real ringing endorsement. Then again, I did see it at 10:30, and I'd been up since 4:45 for clinical...

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On Saturday we watched Mizzou beat Baylor (sorry, Kansas fans, wait no I'm not)...

 ...and hung out with these munchkins.

 And then we got all dressed up (and yes, I dyed my hair...more on that later) and went to one of our favorite restaurants in KC:

If you haven't been here, go immediately. We got the VIP treatment (seriously, when we told them our name for our reservation she said "Oh we'll be taking you to the VIP room"), and the food is SO. GOOD. We both devoured everything they put in front of us, including the best turtle cheesecake I've ever had. Also, there were some ridiculous couples sitting around us, which made for some interesting entertainment during dinner :).

Of course, it wouldn't be Valentine's Day without some gorgeous flowers. I can smell them all over the house, which may not be great for my allergies but makes me super happy.

Thanks again for a great weekend, Sammy :). Hope everyone else has a fabulous Valentine's Day! And also, if you saw the Vow...let me know what you thought of it. I'm dying for a second opinion!

A visit from S&J

After finals, two of my very best friends, Sara and Jackie (S & J, obviously) came to visit me. We hadn't seen each other since last January (eek!) so to say that we were excited to see one another is an understatement.


We did a lot of exciting things that other people may not think are quite so exciting, but hey, that's why we're friends, right?

The first night they were here, we went and saw The Nutcracker at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. It was so lovely! We all love the ballet and this was actually the second that we've seen together.

 The Kauffman Center is gorgeous. It's brand new and if you're ever in the KC area, I recommend you check out a performance here, because the architecture and design is almost as exciting as the show.

Seriously? How pretty is this?

A sunset view of Kansas City

 The next day we spent our day doing some Christmas shopping, some baking, and some knitting!

The master candy cane sprinkler.

We had some enthusiastic helpers in the kitchen!

Our sugar cookie log sprinkled with a LOT of sprinkles

First day of school picture! With a cute little owl backpack.

 And on our final full day together, we headed to the Plaza for some shopping. I was super lame about taking pictures while they were here, but I know between the 3 of us we have some good pictures.

I miss you both so much already, and can't wait for a next trip together!!! Love you guys.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to everyone who is celebrating today! If you aren't, I hope you are having a happy Hanukkah, or will have a wonderful Kwanzaa, or just a spectacular New Year's Eve if none of those are your cup of tea. I would like to take a second to remind a few people that this is the holiday season, not just the Christmas season, so even if you believe something different than someone else, it gives you no right to cut down other religions or people solely to make yourself feel more important.  And in the spirit of the holidays, lets just try being nice to everyone. Capice?


Off my soap box.


I love everything about Christmas, but one of my favorite things is holiday baking. Here's a quick roundup of everything I have baked this holiday season!

Candy Cane Cookies via my Grandmother

Andes Mint Cookies via Becky Higgins

Pumpkin Streusel Muffins... my mom found this recipe somewhere, I'm not sure where.

Peanut Butter Kiss cookies via my great Grandmother's recipe

Christmas Swirl Cookies via Our Italian Kitchen

If you want any of the homemade recipes, let me know. The Candy Cane Cookies are fun AND delicious :).

pinterest challenge #3

Do you remember my post about Christmas pinspiration? With all the wreaths?


Yep. I attempted that.


I seriously thought about not posting this for my third Pinterest challenge because I haaate the way it turned out. I again tried to do this for free, meaning I used things I already had, but it is totally missing something. I think I'm going to hit up JoAnn Fabrics or Hobby Lobby after the holidays to snag some 70% off Christmas decor to add to my lovely wreath.


Here's the inspiration:

And this:

And this is what I came up with:

I think that it needs to be more full with ornaments, etc. and I have visions of red berries incorporated somehow (I don't know, it just seems like it needs something!) but there are some strengths here:

1) I had a grapevine wreath BEGGING to be used and it was taking up space in my room.
2) These ornaments were also taking up space in a drawer in my room, begging to be used.
3) This got me out of studying for about 30 minutes
4) It actually looks decent hanging on the back of our door.


Did you participate in the Pinterest challenge? Only a few more hours remaining!

pinterest challenge #2

Day #2 of the Pinterest challenge.


My two best friends came in town this week (another blog post will be devoted to this lovely occurrence) and we got to work baking some of our favorites, and also tried out some new cookies. We found these beauties:

via Our Italian Kitchen

and set about making them. Our finished version definitely isn't as pretty, but hey, we tried!

I forgot to take pictures before, but we did a semi-homemade version and rolled two packages of sugar cookie dough together and then covered in sprinkles.

They turned out kind of trapeze-like when we cut them, but that's okay

These got HUGE when we baked them. Not sure how to remedy that problem.

These were pretty decent, but I don't like sugar cookies so I'm probably not the best judge. We split them in 3 to each have some and my brothers devoured mine, so I'm assuming they are pretty good :).

It's December! It's December!

Helloooo to my favorite month!

December is FULL of great things..in date order:

Nick's birthday

Sam and I's anniversary (three cheers for five years!)

 A visit from S & J!

Christmas Eve

Christmas

My birthday

 New Year's Eve

With so many wonderful things, I can overlook the fact that I also have to take finals, boo. Hope your December will be as magical as mine :)

christmas pinspiration

I'm in the market for a Christmas wreath.

A DIY Christmas wreath.

If you'll recall, the last time I made a wreath it went pretty well, so I'm thinking I'm capable of making said Christmas wreath. I've been doing some research on Pinterest, of course, and here are some ideas I like:

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What do you guys think? I think I'd be capable of all of these, but I'm not sure which one to attempt...