Oh My Cupcake!

For my mom's birthday, I try to do something special every year to show how much I appreciate her! One year, she went out of town so I redecorated and painted her room and threw a surprise party at our house, another year I took her to the beach with Christy and Meg (I nannied Jay and Christy's kids, Meg and Brooks, for years...they are like family! Brooks and Meg were junior bridesmaid and groomsman in our wedding.) One year I took her on a cruise, but it's getting hard to come up with good ideas now! My mom and I took a little trip to New York City last October and had such a great time, that I thought I would try to recreate it for her birthday. Little did I know, it would be a very accurate recreation of the trip.





We started our "Night in New York (in Atlanta)" by going to Chocolate Pink, the world's best cupcake shop EVER. Seriously. I wanted a good dessert place to replicate Serendipity's in New York, where we went to get incredibly huge desserts for dinner.





They all looked so amazing but we chose 4 flavors. Starting from the left, Chocolate Fudge, Carrot, Pink Lemonade, and Red Velvet.

I think the Carrot might have been my favorite.

And then they were gone...




They went too quickly, so we decided to get 4 more to go. Once we were in the car, we asked ourselves why we only got 4 more. That was stupid! Next time, we plan to go during Cupcake Happy Hour...yes, this is a real thing. Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it?

So after our visit to Cupcake Heaven, we headed over to the Fox to see The Phantom of the Opera! I think the Fox is my favorite Atlanta landmark...or the Varsity...I love me some frosted orange and onion rings. Mmm I just love Atlanta!


This is the part that is weirdly similar to our trip in NYC. We went over Halloween weekend, and of course we went to see the Halloween parade in the Village. It was raining all day and night, but we had to see it while we were there. We got a good spot on the sidewalk and waited with our umbrellas in a smooshed crowd of people. (One thing you might not know about my mom- she is very claustrophobic.) We watched some of the parade then decided to go back to our hotel, since we were drenched. We made our way towards the subway station, which was less than a block away from where we were standing at the parade. Apparently, many of the other people there had the same idea we did. So it was pouring rain, people were pushing, trying to get into the crowded subway station, and we were stuck in the middle of it. I grabbed my mom and pushed through the crowd and got us into the station. We were walking towards the trains and everything was fine, until we saw an even bigger crowd blocking the exit and the stairs to the trains. Obviously, mom was flipping out and she eventually found a policeman to pull us back through the entrance gates away from the people. We stayed down there for probably close to 2 hours, but the crowd wasn't going anywhere. I begged her to just get on a train with me, but she wasn't going back in that crowd! So the policeman and I decided we just needed to get a cab. The stairs to the street were just as crowded, but we eventually pushed our way through (with the help of our 6'6 cop) and got a taxi. We were safely on our way to the hotel....and then our taxi driver got in a wreck. Fun! He hit another taxi but refused to get out of the car to confront the other screaming taxi driver. It was one crazy night...one that I thought was in the past...wrong again!
When we came out of Phantom, it was pouring, which made everyone in the front of the crowd stop so they wouldn't get wet. But people kept coming out and we were stuck in the middle again! We eventually made our way out and had to run 4 blocks in the pouring down rain. It was truly a Night in New York.

After the dejavu, we went for some authentic NY Style pizza at a little dive called Baby Tommy's Taste of New York. I read reviews online that claimed their pizza tasted just like NY pizza, and they were right! It was exactly like the pizzeria across from our hotel in NYC that we visited every night. It topped off a memorable night perfectly! Happy Birthday Mom!

I stayed in Marietta for a couple days while Doug was at work and class all day, so mom and I went out to lunch with one of our favorite people! Carolyn and Cotton are so fun to catch up with!

Cotton is a gorgeous Bichon, but this picture absolutely cracked us up. I guess my camera caught him by surprise!

On Friday night, Doug and I went to the Steve Miller Band concert with my parents. The band is Doug's favorite, so he was pretty dang excited! We went to see the same concert 2 years ago just after we had started dating, so it was fun to recreate this memory, too.

The set was pretty amazing, too!

I will leave you with this bit of sunshine....my little puffball of love! As we were putting away clean dishes, this is what we found:

Lamps and Blueberries

This is long overdue! Hilton Head was so fun and relaxing. Doug and I decided to leave at 5am on Saturday morning to get there in time to watch a World Cup game (more his idea than mine :) We got in bed Friday night around 11:30. By 12:30, we were still wide awake. Doug had the brilliant idea of going to Hilton Head NOW! So we got our stuff together and were in the car by 12:40. We actually had a very eventful night, full of deer, wild dogs running out in front of us, and a police check point in the middle of nowhere at 4am. We got to Hilton Head safely around 5:00, folded down the backseat, and tried to get a little sleep before the game! It was an adventure to say the least!

Crabbing was a blast as always, and we ended up catching 7 crabs.

Look at that form!

Doug's first crab!!

It was my mom's birthday while we were there (HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!)

so we went out to lunch at Hudson's then went shopping, which turned out to be the highlight of the week when we found this adorable lamp:

We are redecorating her room this summer, and we found the perfect duvet and the perfect lamp. The problem was, the store only had 1 lamp left and we needed 2. Since it was from Homegoods, we called every store in Georgia and some in South Carolina. We also called TJ Maxx and Marshall's since they are owned by the same company. No luck! It turns out we had the only cute green lamp in the southeast. And mom was very sad that she had gotten so attached to the lamp.

So this week, I decided to get crafty and try to recreate the lamp. I found 2 drum lampshades and pretty white lamps at Target, and I set out to find the perfect fabric. I found a pretty close match, got some spray adhesive, and got to work. First, you lay out the fabric, roll the lampshade across it, and lightly trace 1 inch around the lampshade on both sides. Then cut it out, start at the seam on the back of the lampshade, and start spraying and rolling!

Make sure to pull it tight at the top and bottom so there aren't any air bubbles. Then trim the top and bottom so that there is just enough fabric to cover the little ridge inside of the lampshade. I used tacky glue and a little paintbrush to finish this part.

And then it's done! I was very happy with the results.

I have several more crafts to do this week, and I honestly could live in Hobby Lobby.

When I got home to Doug on Saturday, we decided to have a little date night, complete with fajitas and margaritas.

Then we topped off the night with our favorite activity, POKER! I have been addicted ever since the honeymoon, where we played twice a day at the resort. We play every night, usually just against each other, but this week we joined a free online poker website and have had even more fun beating other people and winning lots of (play) money.

Another fun part of the week was on Monday night at 3 something AM when our fire alarm went off. It surprisingly woke me up, I usually can sleep through anything. I heard a truck outside our window and looked out to see 2 firetrucks, an ambulance, and several other fire vehicles.

So we go outside to find out what is going on. Several other disgruntled neighbors join us and the firemen tell us they haven't located a fire anywhere, but they are working to turning off the alarm. We were outside for close to an hour, and it turns out there was no fire. Oh the joys of multi-family housing!

Last night, I was in the mood for a good dessert, since we have been trying to eat healthy this week. I decided to make Blueberry Crumble, a recipe that I got from one of my small group leaders in college. It is super easy and sooooo delicious, and almost good for you, minus the stick of butter :)

It calls for 4 cups of blueberries, but I usually just use 2. Lay those in a 1.5 quart dish. Then, combine together 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of brown sugar, 1/4 cup of rolled oats, and 1/2 cup of butter, melted. Crumble this over the blueberries, and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Serve with vanilla icecream on top! (That is a MUST)

Bon Appetit! (We just watched Julie and Julia...I'm inspired!)

Headed to Hilton Head

We leave tomorrow for Hilton Head! My parents went there on their honeymoon and decided to buy a timeshare. So they/we have gone every summer since!

Here is my first summer in Hilton Head

The next summer in HH

Our yearly picture tradition!

Hilton Head is my favorite beach just because of the memories we have there. Like the time that my friends and I had a prank war with my brother and his friends. I still say the best prank was when we got all of the cell phones and set alarms starting at 5am, then 5:02, 5:04, 5:06, etc. We hid them in the boys' room, like under the bed, in drawers, behind the headboard (which one of them ripped off the wall to find it!). Classic. Or the time that my friends and I went to teen night at Monkey Business, a local club. We were probably the only white people in there, and the night ended with me dancing on the stage, doing the most white-girl dance moves you have ever seen. The club was chanting "GO WHITE GIRL! GO WHITE GIRL! GO WHITE GIRL!" Honestly, one of the greatest moments of my life! It was like Charlie's Angels all over again.

We stay at the Island Club, and I love everything about it! My favorite activity there has always been crabbing. My dad takes us to this inlet (I think that's what it is?) and we put these huge chicken wings on a big hook attached to a long string. Then you throw it in the water and pull it back really, really slowly. You watch for the string to move to see if there is a crab pulling on the chicken, and just when you can see where the chicken is in the water, you take a huge net and try to net the crab! We always put the crabs in a bucket and then at the end, we let them go and have a "crab race."

This is Doug's first time to Hilton Head, and I am SO excited to show him the wonder that is Hilton Head! I have always raved about crabbing, so I think he is pretty excited to go. We are also going to see Toy Story 3! Sadly, he has to go back to work on Tuesday, so he will only be there for a few days. We have to cram everything in so he gets a true Hilton Head experience!