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!!

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...

source

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!

the past 36 hours.

Yesterday I woke up at 5:00 to get ready for my day. Normally I would hate any day that my alarm went off before 6:00 am, but several a lot of good things happened yesterday and that carried over to today, so I can deal with it.

In the order in which they happened:

1. My alarm went off. Normally this sucks, but I recently used Garage Band on my Mac to make "Here Comes The Sun" by the Beatles into a ringtone, so now that's how I wake up. It's a LOT better way to wake up instead of "Marimba" which used to be the way I woke up.

2. I had the breakfast of champions, aka a sausage biscuit from McDonalds. I love them because they are only $1. It also meant that I wasn't too nervous to eat breakfast, which I took to mean that my final would go alright.

3. My final did indeed go alright. While I wasn't crazy about some of the questions (though am I ever?) I survived and passed.

4. I got to spend some time with Sam's brother Jake, who I adore, when I picked him up from Mizzou and we headed on to St. Louis.

5. More importantly (sorry, Jake) I got to see Sam for the first time since Thanksgiving.

6. Sam and I exchanged Chrismukkaversary presents (yep, that's right. Christmas, Hanukkah, and our Anniversary. All on one day.) and I got some pretty great stuff (Thanks, Sammy!)...including these:

and:

get this now, if you don't have it. It's a blu-ray of her in concert and comes with a CD and is AMAZING.

7. We had dinner at one of our favorite restaurants in St. Louis, The Scottish Arms. It's always so busy but sooo worth the wait. Highly recommended.

8. I caught up on some serious sleep. I'm talking 11 hours. It was glorious.

9. We had breakfast at a new soon to be favorite, I'm sure. Bagels and lox were had by all and it was delish.

10. I found this black blazer (LC by Lauren Conrad for Kohl's) which was marked down from $70 to $35 and then we had an extra 30% coupon, so I got it for $26. Amazing. It's not exactly what I've been looking for but at $26 I can make it work.

11. I got an A on the research paper that stressed me out for the whole month of November. Score!


Also, this didn't happen to me, but I have to say CONGRATS to my amazing nursing friends who were chosen to have their capstone next semester at Children's Mercy! So proud of you guys. Now, cross your fingers that I get my first choice (KU)! And don't hate, Mizzou friends. It's a great hospital.

Now I'm off to prep the house for the arrival of Sara and Jackie tomorrow. So many fun happenings in one weekend! Hope you all are having just as great of a weekend :).

the weekend through the iPhone (and dslr, if you're counting).

Have I mentioned the love affair I'm having with Apple products? How about Instagram? Once or twice? Sorry, keep bearing with me. I'll never stop gushing about them.

Sam's fall break was this week so he came to spend a long weekend with me. The stars aligned and by some miracle I had Monday and Tuesday off from school, so we got to spend 4 days together! That's unheard of nowadays!

I know for a fact I've bragged on here that I have a nice fancy camera, but I ALWAYS forget to bring it with me! I don't know what my problem is. I did manage to snag a few pictures at my brother's soccer game so I'm sharing those as well. 

 My mom and I have a Vera Bradley obsession, so when she got an email saying that the East West Tote bag was on sale at Bette's Hallmark, she flipped out. I was appointed the super important job of going to buy two of them...because that's JUST what I needed. Another bag.

 After Sam arrived, we headed over to watch my brother play soccer. I always get super excited and weirdly emotional watching my brother play soccer. At his last game he scored both of his team's goals and I cried after each of them. I am seriously strange. He's #12 in the black right there in the middle. Also, excuse my camera, that's as far as it zooms.

 Sam's view was a little hindered by the wooden pole.

 This picture is so typical of my mom. Eyes are closed and the flash isn't even on. However, doesn't she look great!? Hair a normal length and everything.

 This picture is so typical of my little bother brother. He sleeps eve-ry-where.

 My cute cousin Mason, eating up a storm. My brothers eat basically nothing at meals, so he's the first "typical" boy we've seen--3 lunches is normal for him!

 Okay a few things about this picture. One, my posture is awful. Two, my hair is all up in Sam's face. Three, I love my mustard yellow sweater from Loft, but Sam and I are most definitely not coordinating.

 Shortly after the first picture, I used my hand to adjust myself and got a major splinter. Luckily my grandma was prepared with a needle AND tweezers and Dr. Sam was able to fix me up in a snap. I would have been able to do it myself except I injured my right hand and my left is like a wet noodle when it comes to anything dextrous.

My beautiful cousin Amanda (who insists my name is Ly (as in mol-LY) and that I call her Da).

 On Sunday Sam and I were going to head to the Truman Library & Museum, but instead decided to hit up the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum. They had a Monet that I don't remember seeing last time and I fell in love. If only I had a few million (billion?) dollars lying around. Sam told me that the StL Art Museum has all 3 of the "Water Lilies" paintings in house right now so we are most definitely going there next time I go to see him.

 They also had a Rodin exhibit at the Nelson. Here's Sam, thinking about the Thinker. Which, if you're into fun art facts, is not originally that size--it was originally only about 2 feet tall.

 We then headed to the pumpkin patch that we discovered last year with my mom and Nick.

 Sam's sporting his $2.50 pumpkin--SO CHEAP and his sunglasses that we found at Gordman's...originally priced at $12.99, they rang up $3. What bargain hunters we are!

 This pumpkin was amazing--very little on the inside, which is my favorite kind of pumpkin!

Yesterday we went to see the Ides of March (my second time, his first), which I highly recommend to anyone who likes politics, George Clooney, or most importantly, Ryan Gosling. I don't even want to describe it for fear of giving any plot points away!...

...and then we carved up some pumpkins.

By the time I took this picture, I'd finished cleaning my pumpkin, plotted out the face, and washed my hands for the 10th time (hate the feeling of pumpkin guts on my hand). Sam's was a stringy mess. I forgot to take a picture of the finished product but they're outside on the front porch so I'll remember to do that before the neighborhood kids steal them to smash in the street (sad but true).


I didn't take any pictures of this, but we also spent a LOT of time watching baseball this weekend. If you live under a rock, the Cardinals are in the World Series, so we watched them all 3 nights Sam was here :).  Here's to hoping that Game 6 will be more like Game 3 and less like Games 4&5!

weekend recap

As I mentioned in my cooking post yesterday, I went to St. Louis this past weekend to hang out with my main squeeze. We have done a lot of the touristy things in stl because we've been dating for almost 5 years (ah! can you believe it?!), which means I've made a lot of weekend trips, both when we were at mizzou and after. Now we do more every day type things, which I like, because I've learned I've started to prefer the things we go do in St. Louis to the things we do in Kansas City (shh, don't tell my parents...), which will make a move there someday an easier transition.

So anyway, I'm long-winded as usual. This weekend we (and by we, I mean me again) cooked, did some laundry, and cleaned up the apartment. I seem to be incapable of enjoying my free time (one of the characteristics of a Type A personality, awesome), so I always have to be moving.

Between all of THAT excitement, however, I watched Sam play some softball...

We also had some delicious Italian food with Sam's dad, brother, and his brother's girlfriend...

Went to a super exciting poker game...right Sam?....

Saw an a-MAZ-ing movie {seriously, loved it, despite the fact that anything and everything about cancer still makes me cry}....

And took a lot of medicine (me, not Sam). My mom has bronchitis but I'm maintaining I have allergies, so I refuse to go to the doctor. Interesting story, a nursing student that hates doctor's offices...

Who else loves these Mucinex commercials?

What did you do this weekend?


*One thing I didn't do this weekend? Take pictures.