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.

pinterest projects {mason jars}

 We recently moved into a larger apartment which means more space to fill and more nooks and crannies begging for my creative attention.

I saw this pinned awhile ago, and showed it to Sam. He liked it (yay!) which meant I didn't have to feel guilty about having already bought the mason jars :).

I like that it's simple and different than just having your silverware in a boring old drawer organizer!

I wanted to do something that tied in our kitchen colors, so I dug around in my craft stuff and found some ribbon to just add something extra. The best part about the ribbon is that it's simple to switch out because you can tie it tight enough that it won't fall down, so you don't need to glue it or anything! Holla!

Here's our interpretation of the above:

And Sam loved it so much...

 it found it's way into our bathroom as well!

What sort of crafting have you been up to lately?

life through instagram: 7/21/12.

 Nurse socks for the nurse.

 This little guy broke my heart at Petsmart. If Sam was a rule breaker, he would be snoozing next to me right now. Unfortunately, our apartment has a one pet per apartment rule, and I guessssss we have to abide by that rule.

Midweek date night. 

A visit from S!

The view looking up from Sam's parents' pool.

A spur of the moment night out at the Muny to see Chicago.

Straight thugs on the 4th of July. 

Hanging with a naughty clever cat. 

Wild Saturday night: Monopoly and Harry Potter. 

It's super official, people. 

Rereading a favorite. 

Amusement park fun with my mom.

Tomato season (I don't even like them, I just like the way they look in pictures). 

My first Cards game of the year and

a) we won

b) my boy Matt Holliday hit a home run!

I apologize to those who read my blog for life updates--turns out moving and a new job turn me into a poor communicator!

diy: {chalkboard wine glasses}

 Awhile back, I found this cute idea on (where else?) Pinterest.

I started out by taking some wine glasses that my aunt graciously gave me for free....

Do you spy my little helper?

and used some painter's tape to tape off the stem so that the barrel of the glass remained paint free. 

 Then, I wrapped some newspaper around the glass to make especially sure that the glass was safe.

 I then took my glasses outside to a well-ventilated area to spray the stems. My helper tagged along.

I used this Krylon Chalkboard spray paint which I found at Hobby Lobby. It was $7.99, but I used a 40% off coupon and got a good deal on it. Also, I hardly used any of it so it will definitely last me forever.

I then sprayed the stems on the top and bottom and let them dry a bit.

Albert really wanted to lick the glasses, but don't worry, I didn't let him.

And in the end, this was my finished product! They turned out just like the picture, and I found a chalk marker that writes beautifully at Michaels. Not that we host parties a lot, but I can't wait to use them some day (I already used them for my bff's bachelorette party and they worked well!). One cautionary note: do NOT wash these in the dishwasher after you've sprayed them with the paint. It will come off...and then you will have black flecks all over your dishwasher. Whoops!

a spin on chicken pizza

A few weeks ago, I went to a Pampered Chef bridal shower (for A), and they made a delicious veggie pizza for the recipe of the day. I loved it, so I committed some of the recipe to memory and Sam and I improvised our own version the other night.


It's not a typical "pizza" in that it didn't have cheese or sauce on it, but it LOOKED like pizza, so I'm sticking with the name.



This is what I we did: 


I pressed out a can of crescent rolls on my Pampered Chef baking stone which is the best thing besides Sam that's ever happened to me.  I then baked it in the oven for about 14 minutes and pulled it out to cool. I don't think I let it cool QUITE long enough, so I'd recommend about 7-10 minutes of cooling time.

Sorry ladies, that gentleman staring longingly at the crust doesn't come with the recipe.

While that was cooking, I boiled some chicken to cook it through then diced it up. If anyone has recommendations on how to quickly cook chicken for other recipes, I'd appreciate it. I HATE cooking chicken because I'm afraid it's going to be undercooked. I blame my medical microbiology classes for that!

 

Meanwhile, Sam helped me out by making our "sauce". This is the part that I wasn't sure about, so I improvised. Here we used some cream cheese, mayonnaise, fresh garlic, and parsley to make a creamy spread to put on the "pizza".  We didn't soften the cream cheese and it turned out find. Use a big spoon to whip up the cream cheese as best as possible, then stir in the mayo, garlic, and parsley.

 

Cut up the fresh veggies (leave them raw!) of your choice. 

After the crescent roll crust comes out of the oven, spread your cream cheese mixture over the crust just like you would sauce on a pizza.

Then, add the chicken and veggies!

Voila! I'm not sure how healthy this is, given the crescent roll crust. We did however use fresh veggies, reduced fat cream cheese, and reduced fat mayo...so i'm going to say it's not THAT bad for you. Sam was pretty impressed and I liked it a lot too. This is definitely something we'll try again. My favorite parts were that it was really easy, was a "cool" alternative to pizza on a warm Missouri day, and that each time you make it it's so easy to switch up!




Garlic & Herb Chicken Pizza

1 pkg crescent rolls (6 rolls)
1 8 oz pkg cream cheese
1 Tbsp mayonnaise
2-3 cloves fresh garlic
2 Tbsp parsley
veggies of your choice
1 lb cooked chicken, diced.


Press crescent rolls out like a pizza crust, bake at 375 for 14 minutes.

Meanwhile, boil chicken until cooked through (about 20 minutes). Dice and lightly season with salt and pepper. Mix together cream cheese, mayo, garlic and parsley, set aside. Chop up vegetables. After crescent roll crust has cooled slightly, spread cream cheese mixture over entire crust. Top with veggies and chicken (or other toppings of your choosing).

Bon appetit!


*Sorry about the blurry iPhone pictures. Not sure what the problem was.
**My opinions regarding Pampered Chef products are solely mine and were not solicited or paid for by Pampered Chef. I just think they're totally rockin.

a return to the blogging world

Hello, world! It's me, Molly. Remember when I used to update this blog on the reg?

A lot has happened since my last post:

I successfully passed my nursing boards. Woot woot!

Said some goodbyes to some good friends (and some good family). 

Said hello to living with this guy. 

Traveled 1500 miles (each way) to watch my best friend get hitched. 

And started my new job (as a nurse, if you couldn't figure that out). 

Can you believe I've done all of that in 3 weeks? I can't either. Stay tuned for more details on each of those things (except my boards, I never want to talk about those again).