blushing bride

i've mentioned a few times that i was lucky enough to help throw a shower for a friend last week. now i'm here to tell you just how fantastic it all went!

first off, the lovely bride to be:

{lacey jean bradley. isn't she just adorable??}

the guests:

the decor:

the food:

the gifts:

including a very special gift from the bestie and i: a panty parfait.

i got this idea from holly at eight six eleven. i've been following her blog for a while now and i absolutely adore her! this gift is suppose to supply the bride with some fun and sexy undies for different occasions and years to come along with a clever little poem - the perfect gift if you ask me!

{the cherry on top}

 {to last all the way from old age,

to your wedding day,

panties for every occasion,

a sexy underwear parfait}

 {this pair is for your honeymoon,

so sexy, black, and lace.

we hope you leave the hotel room,

to enjoy the gorgeous place}

 {for your first knock-down, drag out fight,

as a married couple,

when justin sees you in this little number,

he'll forgive you on the double}

{a pretty white pair for your first anniversary,

you may be feeling a little naughty.

justin still won't be able to believe,

he married such a hottie}

 {when the time is right for you and justin,

and don't be saying maybe,

you'll wear a little pink or blue,

in honor of your baby}

 {after five or ten married years,

you'll still be going strong,

but if you need a little boost,

just put this beauty on}

 {when your years of wedded bliss,

become the old 2-5,

just slip this little number on,

to keep the spark alive}

{and finally when you're old and gray,

with these you can't go wrong,

but sorry justin at that age,

you just can't wear a thong}

it really was quite the hoot watching her open and read these. it's an easy way to get lingerie to the party and still be classy at the same time. i'm so glad i was able to help out with this. i had the time of my life! i can't wait for lacey and justin to be able to experience the pure joy and happiness that comes with marriage.

-the mrs.

tutorial: adventure map wall art

i pinned this pin eleven months ago. doesn't it seem like that's how pinterest always works? you pin something with high hopes of recreating it yourself and then it sits. and sits. and sits - without even a second glance from you. well, this weekend, i changed that. i feel like the mr. and i have had quite the opportunity for travel in the last year and a half. of course, what do you expect when you've literally moved around the entire country? i've been wanting a way to document our travels and i feel like this project was the perfect way to do it.

before i get started, i must give credit where credit is deserved. i received most of my inspiration for this project from carmen at life blessons. her and her blog are both adorable and it would definitely be worth your time to stop by and give her a holler. i did tweak my project a little bit and here is how:

first, here are the supplies you will need:

-these templates:  template 1, template 2, template 3, template 4, template 5, template 6
-tape
-scissors
-roll of corkboard {pretty cheap at michael's with a coupon}
-an 18x24 inch frame {also, cheap at michael's}
-your choice in paint color {i chose blue to simulate the ocean. clever, i know}
-paint brush
-modge podge {or some other kind of adhesive}
-your choice in card stock color
-straight pins.

download and print all 6 templates of the good ol' us of a and tape them together. cut them out and pin the resulting image of america to your corkboard. {it wasn't until after i was done with the project that i realized the templates aren't an exact replica of the united states. there were places that had one too many bumps and juts, but it gets the point across just the same.} i found that it was easier to just trace around the template than to try to keep it attached to the corkboard while i cut it out.

so, after it's traced, remove the template and cut it out.

tadah! we are already well on our way. next, take your frame and tape the edges like so:

i just went ahead and painted the actual glass, but if i could go back, i'd probably put card board or something in the frame and paint that instead. paint on glass seems to chip pretty easy, but if you just can't help it, it won't ruin the project.

now that you've got your usa corkboard and your painted frame, all that's left really is the assembling {aka the easy part}. i just modge podged the corkboard to the frame. it kept wanting to peel up, so i eventually had to put a bunch of cups on it to keep it down.

when i showed it to the mr., he was appalled that i didn't have alaska or hawaii on it. after all, we did recently take a vacation to hawaii, so i couldn't just forget about it! the templates i used can be found  here and here.

lookin' good, we're almost there! i liked how carmen had the banners on her map, but since most of the places we've visited are in the west, i didn't want to have to poke the banners to mark where we've been. so i made a different kind of banner and placed it at the top. i also loved the fonts that she used, but i couldn't find them anywhere. so, i got as close as i could. since i'm nice, i'll just go ahead and save you the trouble and give you the fonts: our adventures together. and the good news is that they're all free! hooray!

finally, the last thing to do is to print off the places you've been and put them on the board! we decided that we would only put up places that we've either lived or have actually taken a vacation to.

one day, i hope to have this whole board nearly covered. i also hope to have a europe one next to it. ;) go ahead and try this simple project yourself! i'm sure you'll fall in love with it just as much as i have. feel free to send me the link to it because i'd love to see how it turned out! next travel project: these shadow boxes.

happy crafting my friends!

-the mrs.

one month.

an entire month. can you believe we've already been in our house for that long? and what did we do to celebrate? same thing we do for every momentus occasions {also the same thing we did when we moved into this place}:

 {6.15.12}

we get mormon-drunk on sparkling cider.

{7.15.12}

and boy is it delicious. happy one-month-moving-in-versary to us!

-the mrs

top five friday.

maybe you noticed, maybe you didn't, but i didn't do a top five last week. things were too crazy and my parents don't have the internet at their house {crazy, i know}, so i just decided to bag it. but that means that i get to give you my top five favorite things from the past two weeks. be excited.

#1 - the denver aquarium. when i picked my little sister up from the airport {which was so fun to have her here by the way}, we made a jaunt to downtown denver and went to the aquarium. with tickets being 22 bucks a piece, i was expecting something fantastic. i'll be honest, it fell short of my expectations, but we still had fun.

 i'm a pirahna, they're in the amazon. {name that movie!}

if you guessed 'finding nemo' then you guessed right! and here's a lovely 'finding nemo' tank to celebrate.

i kind of have a feeling that we accidentally skipped half of the stuff that we were supposed to see, but whatever i guess. we still made the best of it!

#2 - the fourth of july. guys. i can't believe how much i fell in love with this holiday this year. we were doing stuff all day for it! we went to a pancake breakfast that our church put on:

 {don't judge the crazy hair. stupid cheyenne wind.}

we had an awesome barbecue with friends:

 {look at that get-up! it was just as delish as it looks.}

and we watched fireworks on a baseball field on base. it doesn't get more american than that!

it really was a freaking blast. every last bit of it. if christmas wasn't my all-time favorite holiday, this one would be for sure!

#3 - tie dying.

i think i've only tie dyed a shirt once and it turned out to look like poop. literally. all of the colors blended together and there was nothing but an ugly brown color left. not appealing at all. i was afraid of that happening this time, but i got lucky. you may now call me a tie-dying genius.

not too shabby, if i say so myself!

#4 - summer. even though i am a heat-hater and our house doesn't have air conditioning {making it absolutely unbearable some days}, i have loved being able to go outside and sit in the shade for hours on end and not even think twice about it. i am not looking forward to the snowy days this winter, so i am soaking up the warmth every chance i get! as i was outside with copper yesterday, this little guy {or i guess girl?} came to say hello:

ladybugs just scream summer to me! is there anything in particular that makes you feel like summer is definitely here?

#5 - a friends reunion. the bestie and i spent all day saturday, putting suff together for our friend's bridal shower. {more to come on that later!}

i can't even tell you how good it was to see everyone at that shower. i have had the same friends since i was about ten years old. that's when i moved to utah and these lovely girls took me under their wing:

 {l to r: kaitlyn, me, shandi, feleicia, amie, lacey}

and this isn't even all of them! some of them are still on lds missions and one of them wasn't able to make it. it has literally been almost 2 years since i have seen some of them. i don't know what i would do without these girls in my life. they have seriously helped shape who i am today. i'm so grateful to have grown up with such great examples around me!

hope you're having a wonderful friday! i'm getting started on a craft that i can't wait to show you all. wish me luck!

-the mrs.

i would love to hear about your 5 favorite things from this week! grab my button and link up below, so i can read all about it!!

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the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

ok, maybe the title of this post was exaggerated a little bit. my day yesterday wasn't all bad. just mostly. before i get into it, i have to back up a bit. i went to utah last week. one of my best friends came home from an lds mission and i wanted to visit her and i was also helping to throw a bridal shower for another close friend. so there was a lot going on. if you remember, my little sister also came to visit and was planning to make the trek back to utah with me. so, as we were getting things ready a couple days before, zachary noticed a bulge in the back tire of our car. we have two cars - an '06 honda accord named theo, and a '96 honda civic named stella. theo was the one with the bulge. because of the the fourth of july being a holiday and all, we found that we couldn't get new tires until after i needed to leave. so, naturally we knew that i would just have to take stella. no problem right? wrong. so very wrong.

we made it to park city, ut, about 40 miles from our destination, when i looked down and saw the check engine light was on. i got off the next exit and saw that the battery and oil light had flipped on as well. i immediately pulled over, just as stella started to smoke and died completely. awesome. here i am with nobody but my little sister and my dog and i haven't a clue what to do. oh, and did i mention it was raining? yeah, that was a fun walk to the gas station. to make a long story short, i found someone to tow us and we got the car to a nearby mechanic. it wasn't going to be ready for a day or two, so luckily, my awesome brother-in-law was kind enough to pick us up. it was a pain not having a car for the five days i was there, but whatever. i got over it.

alright, now fast forward to yesterday. the majority of it really was a good day. i was able to sleep in and hang out with my family for a few extra hours, copper slept almost the entire time in the car, and i was able to go to lunch with my sister-in-law. always a plus. i picked up my car and 700 dollars later, copper and i were on our way. i realized my phone had died and i didn't have a car charger, so i stopped in evanston, wy to pick one up. there was no way i was going to get stuck in the middle of wyoming with a dead phone. i was in wal-mart probably three minutes before the power went out. i hurried and grabbed my stuff, checked out, and when i went outside, i was seriously questioning whether or not there was a tornado out there. the wind and rain seemed to have come out of nowhere and it was making quite the uproar. that didn't make driving very easy. i braved the storm and when we were almost three hours from cheyenne, i noticed the needle on the temperature gauge was getting uncomfortably close to the red. i called the mr. and he told me to turn on the heater full blast. fun fact about me - i hate being hot. i would seriously rather freeze my butt off than be an ounce over-warm. that definitely didn't help my mood. the needle went down a little bit, but about an hour later, it was back up in the red. nothing was helping. i would pull over and let it cool down for a bit, but the moment i got back to driving, the needle would be back up again. it was really starting to stress me out. after this going on for an hour, i just started to bawl. i was afraid that the car would die again and i would be stranded all by myself, in the middle of nowhere. i prayed harder than i've ever prayed before that i could just make it home safely. by this time it was past midnight and i was exhausted. i had finally made it to laramie, about 45 minutes away and i pulled over for a good half an hour. i was most worried about the canyon between laramie and cheyenne that has a pretty steep hill. stella struggled the most going up hills. i prayed and prayed and prayed, that everything would be okay and that i wouldn't have to worry anymore. i got back on the road and my eyes were pretty much glued to the temperature gauge. so far, it was stuck right between the hot and cold - just where it should be. lo and behold, after all the ups and downs, i made it to cheyenne. and the needle didn't move once. it was reaffirmed to me that God really does answer prayers and He is mindful of me no matter how insignificant my problems may be. would i have survived being stuck alone on the side of the road? yes. but i am grateful for the power that prayer can have in making my life a little more bearable. i'm so glad i survived yesterday and if i could have one wish come true, it'd be to never experience anything like it again.

on a happier note, look at my adorable dog. i think he's the reason that the term 'puppy eyes' came about.

that's all.

-the mrs