Frightening Photo Friday

In honor of Halloween, I must show off my husband in one of his finest moments EVER.  Last year on our cruise to Cabo, we dressed up as bad-boy and girl scouts.  Ian took advantage of the professional photo opportunities throughout the ship.

Hottness, ya?

Pet Watercolor

I think the first time I came across this type of art was on Pioneer Woman’s Blog. I think it is the perfect gift idea and I was pretty stoked on having one done up for Ian, of his two love children fur things, Kaiser and Buddy.

*Tangent – Ian now picks Buddy up by the skin of his neck and the cat LOVES it. Like can’t stop purring. Can you imagine? Picking up a 17lb. fat ass cat by his neck skin? But I guess it releases a certain hormone and is soothing to the kitty… like when momma kitty picked them up like that when they were babies? Anyway, I can’t get a good enough grip to do it. Plus I’m scared. But it trips me out seeing Ian do that and then I’m jealous that Bubba might thinks he’s his mom and love him more than me.

But back to the gift idea..

So I checked out the woman showcased on the PW blog and she’s pretty dang spendy. I set out to find my other options and came across Ron. He specializes in modern pet watercolor and was priced much more fair, IMO. I figured I’d have him do one for Ian and if it turned out nicely, I’d have a rock solid go-to gift idea in my back pocket! Note to any of my immediate family who may be reading this – you can’t steal this idea. It’s all MINE! At least for this year, ok? Ok.

First I sent him a few pictures of each animal and he photoshopped a rough plan for my approval. See:

Then he asked me what color preferences I had (just masculine I said) and he went to work.

He sent me a scan of the final piece before mailing it to me. That way if I saw anything I wanted him to change, he could do his best to take care of it. I thought it was perfect the first time, but I thought that it was really awesome he asked! Clearly customer satisfaction is a priority.

The final product was this beautiful 11 x 14 custom painting of our kids, that I had framed up and then gave to Ian for his birthday. He started crying tears of joy when he opened it. Ok, no he didn’t. But he definitely loved it. So I would highly recommend this for pet lovers, or as a gift to a pet lover. You can visit Ron’s site here for more samples of his work, and pricing info. Better hurry cause he will get busier in to November!

Frightening Photo Friday

I have no explanation

Master Bath: Part III - The Big Reveal

I’m going to pretend that I’m a famous home improvement blogger for a second. It’s time for our BIG REVEAL!

Do you remember what our master bathroom looked like before? Let me refresh your memory.

I’ll let you recall what it looked like in all its deconstructed glory.

And now look at the amazing finish!!

Isn’t it great? I can’t get over how much of a difference it is. Major, major thanks to my awesome Dad who slaved over it in his free time. It was a work of love, that’s for sure =)

Know what’s funny? It’s actually been done for almost 3 weeks now and I only ever pee-peed in there until just this weekend. For the first week, neither of us used it at all because I wanted it spic-n-span for Robin’s shower guests to use; and then I’m pretty sure they found the ugly bath anyway. But since then, Ian has been making himself comfy in there…showering, shaving, doing his business, etc. And it still looks so nice! I just knew as soon as I got in there and start getting my hair and make-up all over the place, it wouldn’t be the same. Sigh.

You know what I love though? The big medicine cabinet! It hold all of my stuff so neatly and if I keep the middle relativey clear, I can see myself and leave it open while I get ready/do my makeup. Ian loves it also because he can open the door, and shave while he’s in the shower! Makes me happy not having all his little hair specs all over the sink. So here’s to having a beautiful bathroom! Yay!

Frightening Photo Friday

You may remember my lovely tongue photo from last week's FPF.  Do not fear, I am not alone with this talent.  See...

Poor Helena.  She tries so hard but struggles to perform under pressure.
Check out Lindsay! I think she's the best.

Minute to Win It

I know I got a few people pretty darn excited about a possible Minute to Win It party at some point. The hubs and I were watching one night and started discussing how fun and easy it'd be to put together a bunch of games, get people drunk, and have our own showtime fun at home! =P

The discussion let to some official practice.  If you haven't seen this one before, the object is to blow a deck of cards off a bottle, leaving only the last card a top the bottle when you are finished.  You can see in the video that Ian thought he did it.  Frankly though, if you ask me, just because for a tiny split second the card sat there before flying off behind the rest, doesn't mean you won.  Sorry Ian. Keep practicing.

Buddy likes to play his own game in the kitchen.  It's called "try to catch the moth that's flying around behind the window".

Frightening Photo Friday

I was just chilling at home, being my usual cool self on a Friday evening, taking care of my occasional FB un-tagging of painful pictures that my friends pointed me out in for everyone to see, AND I realized I have a tendancy to go out of my way to be awkward, unattractive and utterly rediculous in a strong majority of photos.

So is born - Frightening Photo Friday.  Enjoy.



This was around the time a few of us discovered our hidden tongue talent. (More on that in coming weeks)
 If I remember correctly, the photographer wanted me down by Shera's butt in order to capture the "Bride to Be" part of the robe.  But if you don't look close, it does look quite odd -- in a weird not-sexual, kinda sexual weird way. 



BTW - I also realize I have many a friend, and a husband, that enjoy this same trait... you may get lucky and be showcased here as well!

Lovebirds Robin & Zach

I was lucky enough to have the honor of hosting my friend Robin’s bridal shower a couple weekends ago. After much deliberation, we ended up going along with her lovebird wedding theme. Because I have so many amazingly talented friends, I was able to enlist the help of Nicole, event planning extraordinaire! She’s really got a knack for nailing the details aspect of party planning. Remember my recent post about her son’s Pirate Party? Since she’s trying to turn her gift into a profitable business venture, she enlists her friend-photographer to come and capture her efforts on film.




Here’s the couple of honor, photo by Melissa McClure

 



Invite



Unfortunately I don’t have any photos of us at the moment, or the guests, but I do have all these details that Shannon got! Pretty much every idea (and the execution) was Nicole’s. She gets an A+ for creative juices.



Champagne Bar

 

Mason jar drinking glasses!
The cutest part was that each one had a letter and lined up they spelled "Robin" and "Zach"
Since there are no duplicate letters in their names, it was perfect!!

Cookie Bar

Strawberry, Regular, and Chocolate Milk

Chocolate Carmel Cupcakes

Outside belly tables

Advice Table
Marriage - Home - Kids - Something else, I forget.  Sex?  j/k

"Lovebird Tree" Guestbook
The guest stamped their thumbprints to comprise the leaves and then signed their names.



Hidy Ho

Time to revive this bad boy! Sorry I’ve been MIA more so than usual… Our home computer took a turn for the worse and then I was just so dang busy with life that I put off getting a replacement for weeks. Funny thing is that I didn’t even miss it until I truly did need it for 2 online classes I’d registered for. I thought I couldn’t blog because I didn’t have any pictures. And I couldn’t download my pictures, because I didn’t have a computer. Sure enough one of the first things I do with my new toy, is download all 3 of my pictures. I guess I didn’t have as much material as I thought? I guess I’m boring. I did host a bridal shower though, and was able to steal those pictures… coming up next!


Also stay tuned for *drum roll please*…
Our master bathroom unveiling!

Followed by leaky AC, flooded hallway, torn up flooring fiasco.