My favorite day of the year

It's my birthday! Today I am 30. I love celebrating my birthday so I think that always helps with getting older. I don't really feel that old, but I guess that's what all old people say. :)

I'll post more about my bday when I have pictures. Last weekend, Ben worked very secretly with Brandi (best friend from Indy), and Daniel Castro (best friend from Austin's husband) to throw Katie and I a surprise 30th birthday party in Indy. It was awesome, and I'll post more about it as soon as I get some pictures uploaded.

Tonight we're eating at the Lazy Goat in Greenville. Yum! I plan to eat a whole bunch of cheese, and not feel guilty about it at all. That's the beauty of your birthday.


Image found via here

She's One!

My niece, Ellana, turned 1 on May 1st. So for her first birthday, it got to be her golden birthday. We went up to Durham for her party. I haven't seen her since New Year's, and she is such a little doll. Seriously adorable.

She can do some sign language. She's watching her video here and doing "hat".

Listening to everyone singing to her.

Looking stylish.

Final group picture.

I love her!

Chills

This Harry Potter preview gives me chills. I cannot wait!!

Magical Moon

I found this image via tales of me and the husband and thought it was pretty cool. Her blog is pretty cool as well. That's all!

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day to you! I've never been a die hard Valentine's Day fan, but we do celebrate it somewhat. This year Ben left for a conference on the actual day so our Valentine's Day was on Saturday. After a lunch at Bdubs (a fav) with some trivia and basketball, we came home for our celebration. We have a tradition that Ben makes me a surprise dinner, which of course I love! This year he out-did himself.

Look at this feast!

We had seared scallops (unbelievable), split a grilled steak with grilled tomatoes (best combo ever), and an artichoke salad. The artichoke salad had artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, capers, red onion, and olive oil. It was divine. Basically my husband rocks, and I'm completely spoiled.

Here's me before the dinner (pardon the messy desk behind me). My new boots are my second valentine. I'll probably have an entire post about them soon.
 

I hope you had a great Valentine's Day as well!

Giveaway Love

As previously stated, I read a lot of blogs. One fun thing about the blog world is GIVEAWAYS! Who doesn't love signing up to get free stuff?! Of course, I have the "Craig" luck and never win, but that doesn't mean I'm going to quit trying.



On another note, although it will relate in a minute just wait!, Ben and I purchased a Canon Rebel DSLR for our one year anniversary. It takes amazing photos, although we both want to take a class to learn more. It is hard to take out to random nights and events however because of its size.



Now how do these things fit together?? Ah ha, here you go.



Sydney of The Daybook (one of my new favs) is doing THEIT bag giveaway! This bag would enable me to carry around our camera to all kind of events, combine it with my purse items, and look cute doing it. So I pretty much want to win. I get an extra entry if I blog about it so here you go!

Hail Purdue

*print made to order from q.a. design

Hoosier by birth, Boilermaker by the grace of God.

I love my Boilers, win or lose, but beating Indiana is always the best.

Hail Purdue!!

Pasta to Die For

Excuse the improper grammar in the title, but this pasta is unbelievably yummy. Ben and I make it about once every two weeks. I know I originally found it online, probably through a blog, but I can't remember where so I'm sorry I can't credit it. I've tinkered with it anyway so it's not really the same recipe I found. The original recipe called for baked chicken, marinated in Italian dressing. I found myself actually picking around the chicken so we just eventually started leaving it out. We also add mushrooms, cooked with olive oil and salt, because, well, mushrooms are awesome. This pasta actually makes me feel like a cook.

I would post the recipe if I thought anyone actually read this blog, but I'm pretty sure it's just Ben. He already knows the secret. Besides, if you ever come to our house for dinner, you have a pretty good chance of being served "pasta to die for."

Just check it out!

(If you do happen to read the blog and want the recipe, let me know. I'm more than happy to share!)

The cutest little girl

This is our niece and god-daughter, E. Isn't she the cutest thing ever?

E with her dad, my brother, Steve, having her first Christmas coke (with the cap on of course. :))

Look at those BLUE eyes!

She's so happy!

I love this baby.

A little bit

Friday, Ben and I ate a little bit of this,

drank a little bit of this,

and watched a little bit of this

I also wore these beautiful shoes just because I wanted to do so.

They make me happy even if I'm just sitting on the couch at home. It was a good night. I hope you had a fabulous weekend!